What are the magical ingredients that go with the making of a rematch?
Well, for one thing you’ve got to had the first fight sellable enough to have it placed within that marquee value. Secondly, you have to possess your sensibilities about yourself to know that what you’d seen once before on premium goes straight to the PPV vendors for wetting your appetite. True to its art form rises a star that’s captured the imagination forbearing all speculative aspirations to demean his dream. His only transgression (if you could call it that) was to fall short of beating another well-known warrior.
On January 21st 2006, at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, NV WBC International Super Featherweight Champion Manny Pacquiao, 40-3-2, 32 KO’s, will have his chance to redeem himself against Erik Morales, 48-3, 34 KO’s, in an eliminator for who will get to the Marco Antonio Barrera sweepstakes, the current reigning WBC Super Featherweight Champion. We’ll get to that a little bit later, but for now let me draw out the color commentary with some tangibles of this fight you’re all about to see.
Many in the smaller weight categories see this as a great opportunity to progress along the lines of one enormous marketing tool. What gives that off is the understanding that you don’t have to be the dominant heavyweight anymore to make money, fortune, and fame. All it takes is a little patience, grueling long hours in the gym, and some minimum amount of pain. It also helps if you so happen to be in the Hispanic market too, and you don’t necessarily have to be one to qualify. In an abundant fluent household that jams family Latino American traditions like it was in the ’50’s when families ate together, swap spit together, and just sat to watch television in gatherings for some wholesome conversation on the topic of the day, the boxing industry has alerted distinct attention to the consumers for their consumption. What’s even more, it isn’t uncommon anymore today to see insurmountable numbers of non-Latino folks watching Telemundo or Telefutura on a regular basis without so much as coming across any language barriers to come between those particular equations, not any more.
Fighters, managers, and promoters seek to incorporate their services onto these stations to expose themselves as much as possible, and the influx is so huge that they have to push a few of those dates back. Boxing along with many other sports has realized unlimited accesses rising above many obstacles, and languages were not one of them.
What makes this bout interesting aside from their statures and sizes are the fervent anticipations of these two combatants to foresee redemption in their own worlds; one for Erik in his conqueror Barrera of their third fight; and in Pacquiao reclaiming dominion having lost to Morales; but having beaten Marco Antonio in a shocking upset beforehand. If you thought these events which led to this conclusion hadn’t brought us all here into meeting Three-time champion Marco Antonio Barrera of three diverse weight categories, then stop disillusioning on those views. Each does want a piece of Barrera. And to think, that Barrera was a 25-1 underdog against Prince Naseem Hamed once upon a time.
Filipino southpaw Manny Pacquiao throws a mean left cross with a widened stance. He’s unlike your unorthodox fighter in that he resets himself from a pivoting movable right back foot to reassert himself. He can punch in snappy combinations from distances with it in reaffirmations, and zooms in like a picture lens. Erik Morales has been questioned over the years for his mental attitude entering into fights as late. Those hints became apparent with his first fight against Marco Antonio Barrera in which he came into his dressing room at the end of the fight and hands Marco a medal saying he’s earned it. He then only reneged on it entirely in Tijuana proclaiming Barrera to be a crybaby not to have been accepting to the judges’ verdict. That’s led to the animosity between them that can in fact land to a fourth fight. And Barrera has publicly said to fight Erik again to close his mouth on the subject.
Pacquiao might have more to say about that eventuality with a Morales defeat. If there are any noticeable weaknesses in the Pacquiao arsenal, it’s been that to beat him you’d have to accelerate foot and hand speed to outfox him, and use that immeasurable totalitarian jab to keep him at bay with. Those are going to be the two things that Morales would have to undertake and do. Manny uses boxing tactics to undermine most of those surges. Looking at Erik’s speed lately he’s used it at a pacing pace. He has not exactly overwhelmed his opponents like when he was a Super Bantamweight or Featherweight, and his most ardent fans have seen him get hit a lot more often from bringing back his his well spent shells fired to returned position. Meaning he’s left himself opened for countering shots that weren’t possible to do three and four years ago.
On the other hand Manny Pacquiao does something too that is somewhat of a characteristic when he’s in trouble. He gets a bit perturbed with patiently waiting and likes to initiate the aggression. This could be his biggest flaw to overcome against Morales who is a pinpoint precisionist to counter punching. It was what sustained him though the three Barrera wars, and will no doubt be carried into this fight with the diminutive Pac Man, should he figure that in the heat of battle, and not neglect to keep his gloved right hand up to his chin.
There’re other things that make this match up possibly going in favor of Pacquiao winning that make it about as intriguing as any. With the explosiveness Manny carries bringing aggressive generalship, it can very well be that he would be the less for being winded in the match. Erik has been known to take breaks into the rounds, and that tells me that he’d need to breathe out of his mouth to gather air.
This can seesaw into attrition with sporadically immense changes in the composition of the fight. It may not be to either fighter’s advantages to give the other coffee breaks or letting the other off the hook so to speak, not when the rounds are so close to pronounce a winning round its not. That may leave more of lasting impression needed be to further translate for. In closer rounds when they defuse each other’s attacks, seldom do judges see eye to eye in calling them even rounds, although you’d have to call that a flip of a coin, nothing beats subjective scoring nonetheless.
I would give the edge in stamina to Pacquiao. I’d even give Manny to be credited to being the faster fighter of the two as well. What is questionable over this fight as the rounds mount up is whether Erik can keep chipping away with his body attack to slow Pacquiao down with any telling effects.
Giving Morales as to being the dean of bodywork does have its benefits.
What is unanswered though is whether Pacquiao can endure that over any particular length of time putting together a formula to thwart off that measure. Erik knows the breadbasket is the oasis to the victory, and he’s not abandoning the apprenticeship.
Erik could reopen old scar tissue in the fight for Pacquiao with a well-placed punch. I know that as remote a possibility as it may weigh on that issue, it doesn’t necessarily have to be such a hard punch to do.
What we don’t want to see in the eventuality that it does occur before five complete rounds are in the books is that it isn’t tabulated as a punch, anything unseen for curtailing and calling it an accidental head butt. Should that happen the best that we could all hope for is that the cut wouldn’t prevent the fighter from continuation, otherwise the scorecards will have to do their job.
Reflexes will have to be sharp for Erik to succeed. It is crucial.
I think Erik Morales will be relying on that as his manifesto. Pacquiao will just assume to disrupt that in the first few earlier rounds, but will stare in the face of a stubborn unyielding cog in wielding countering, and Morales will pickup on the deviance almost as keenly as he’ll pick on setting the dividends apart because relentless pressure may crack an egg, and these wills are evenly matched.
Manny will have to sustain attacks and hold a defensive posture in throwing Erik off the obstacle course, and the sustainability might not be whether he can do both, but more of a matter if he can maintain it. I don’t believe so. I really think that Pacquiao’s better chances are to go for the knockout punch within eight rounds, otherwise he’s in for a rough night. Morales thrive and relishes into those later rounds in spite of he taking off some of those middle ones. I also think that Erik turns up the heat much better when the opponent believes he can beat him. As for Morales’s punching power goes at lightweight, he isn’t a lightweight anymore fighting as a junior-lightweight; and extrapolations of this kind only serve to infuse a much more determination in favor of Erik to get an egg yoke on folk’s faces.
So I’m going with MP winning the earlier rounds, with a stronger resurgence coming from EM taking the fight on majority scores by points. No knockdowns, but plenty leather to be thrown and playing catcher to fulfill a highlight reel.
