When the Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez featherweight rematch couldn’t be made, given the monies Juan Manuel wanted and Top Rank’s tendered offer, Erik Morales stepped up and took the risk of his career to face down the Pilipino Typhoo, who had swept aside Morales’ arch rival Marco Antonio Barrera November 15, 2003, via a savage beating over 11 rounds. Barrera had revised his winning strategy against Morales himself a year later November 27, 2004 and thus pushed Morales to the problematic margins of superstardom at 130. Mustering his unrivaled courage, Morales effectively rolled the dice, standing in for Marquez, ready, willing and self-enabled to effectively risk his status as one of the true elite fighters in boxing. All of this at the age of 28, championships at three weight divisions left in the wake of his momentary crisis of fate, the legendary Mexican boxer-thriller convinced his greatness was not yet to be characterized in the past tense.
Fight fans learned a lot about both Morales and Pacquiao through the protracted struggle of their first 12 rounds together. We found out that though he’d had to navigate the chaotic confidences of working with promoter Murad Muhammad and the shock of his own technical shortcomings against the master Morales, “Pac Man” was there to contest and battle beyond his perceived encumbrances. Two years younger, though two inches shorter, Pacquiao came into the ring as the odds maker’s favourite, tipping the preflight, unofficial scales at 139 to complement Morales’ 140lbs.
Essentially, Pacquiao and Californian trainer Freddie Roach wanted to keep Erik Morales backing up, utilizing his spearing right – the jab – early and often against Morales. If avenues to apply his power could be carved out or Morales provoked into unguarded exchanges on the inside, Team Pacquiao felt the shorter armed and faster handed “Pac Man” could land with clear power volleys from the get-go. The driving predicate to this strategy was that since Barrera had folded before Pacquiao’s power so would Morales; perhaps, Manny Pacquiao was akin to Naseem Hamed, the pulverizing talisman of featherweight boxing who’s unprecedented charisma and melodramatic persona had made millionaires of boxing’s smallish superstars.
And as if born to be great, Manny Pacquiao certainly came out throwing heat from the first bell; just as Morales skipped back constantly from a set position to ascertain just what kind of power volleys Pacquiao was capable of landing. When the Mexican finally engaged he did so with the intention of landing his lead jab. Switching to the body and head came naturally to Morales’ sense of targeting in the very first round. The first defining flurry by Pacquiao a right-left-right and left uppercut to body, forced Morales back to the ropes, the punches scoring flush. The action lifted the crowd out of their seats. And in that instant Morales centered his body, his counter pointing response at 1:22 of the first launched with his back pressed to the ropes. About to pounce, Morales was poised within the hail of Pacquiao’s thundering offensive flurry, the Mexican finding a small pocket of resisted distance and by instinct and inclination he stormed back at the aroused and going-for-the-kill Pacquiao. Morales’ left-right, left-left-right, left and big right in combination had the advancing Pacquiao darting off, shaking his head to clear the received trauma.
And so the integrative pattern of the fight was established. Leverage punching was going to be challenged by precise leads. All out aggression was going to be made to defend positions in mid offensive flow. The fighter turning defense to offense was going to have to be able to withstand the summery judgment of blistering first time lead crosses, rights from Morales and lefts from Pacquiao. Territorially, the fight was going to transition from mid ring to the ropes in near eye blinks. Pacquiao’s body work at 20 seconds remaining in the opening round reminded his followers he was determined to break Morales down as he had Barrera. And Morales felt it, as they boxed into position before Morales opened up his account to the body of Pacquiao, adding as well 2 straight head shots, the fans screaming with rabid intensity at the seesawing action. And that was just the first round.
Team Morales felt that the opening round was a critical one in finding out just what was myth and what was reality with respect to Pacquiao’s over all hitting ability. From their point of view, the application of strength was going to be an essential element in winning what was predicted by them to be a protracted struggle. If the pace of the fight could be dictated by the counter puncher in the fight, it was going to take a truly amazing performance by Morales to lead from behind the currents of initiating action. Thus, the Morales jab became as much an offensive weapon as a defensive syringe. At issue was the ability of Pacquiao to carry his strength quotient while engaged in continuous punching volleys, less than half of which coming at a time of his choosing. Just as Morales was judging “Pac Man’s” hitting power and defensive stoutness, Morales’ right hand counters put some serious thaw on Manny’s left cross, the dreaded Manila Ice that tanned Marco Antonio Barrera.
The final ten seconds of the 2nd was highlighted with some serious exchanges, Morales, again with his back to the ropes, took some bombs before countering to the head and body of his willing opponent. All the while Pacquiao remained convinced he was the bigger hitter and his power was going to eventually break the technical and mental resistance of Erik Morales. In the opposing corner, Team Morales encouraged their charge to fight knowing he could engage as the bigger fighter over the distance. Morales, for the balance of his prime career, had fought as a tactical aggressor; so in a sense, both fighters had visions of the other succumbing.
With Pacquiao scoring heavily in the third and fourth rounds, it appeared that Morales had decided to stay on the inside longer, sacrificing head movement willing to engage frontally, searching for his right hand counter to the head of the Pilipino superstar. At 1:50 of the fourth, Morales surged to let the hard hitting “Pac Man” know he could absorb his best left shots, the hook or the cross; situationally, Morales found “Pac Man” with punches Freddie Roach felt was a result of Pacquiao “playing” with Morales. After fifteen minutes of savage fighting, both Pacquiao and Morales had lost some of their defensive composure, their mutual degrading allowing the opponent to hit with near abandon at times. When they decide to allow temporary distance to form between each other and box, Morales proved himself to be the more precise puncher, but only marginally so.
Stamina was already becoming a component in the fight given the extended nature of the exchanges and intensity of the defensive fighting. Interestingly, Morales on the offense had Pacquiao, at times, countering wildly, a hint of desperation characterizing some of his volleys. Finally, a left hook-right uppercut combo torn through “Pac Man’s” defense prefacing the first damaging series of combinations in the 5th and the result was a vertical cut into the right eyebrow of Manny Pacquiao. Neither the long assessment by the ringside physician, nor the fact of the cut, broke the rhythm of the battle the two jr. lightweights defined back in the first round.
Morales’ ability to see his opponent and find a punching pocket to return fire, while being hit, was a major element in that first fight, that and the Mexican’s choice of a left hook to the head to blunt Pacquiao, when the Pilipino tired to pressure him along the ropes. The repeated tactic of Morales countering after making “Pac Man” miss with his signature left cross and then smoke home the long left jab really had Pacquiao over thinking situations his power and attacking willfulness would normally have just solved with total domination. The all out aggression needed to back up Morales was turning out to be a formula which had Morales in tactical control of the counter hitting situations and forcing a bleeding Manny Pacquiao to expose himself, at times, in an unwarranted fashion.
At 1:15 of the seventh Pacquiao summoned his speed of hand to land thee combination of the night. A clubbing combination of five punches was answered later by Morales ducking to angle in a vicious body shot and then a blistering right hand to the head of a blinking and retreating Pacquiao. With 19 seconds left in the seventh, a vicious left hook to the body by Morales illustrated the nature of pugilistic pain; his moment of elegance was answered by “Pac Man” with two drum beating body shots and left uppercut near the close of a debilitating seventh.
For the next two rounds, Morales loaded up hard right crosses, streaming in behind a punishing left lead, the rights designated by determination to knock Pacquiao out cold. With contained ferocity, Manny absorbed the necessary and unloaded with which ever hand had free access, at whatever part of the body Morales presented to him. The fighting was at times reflexively elemental, only their lead jabs keeping to the comportment of designed technique.
The shorter armed Pacquiao hoped to fight himself into the exchanges to be there, center stage, able to pin point the head of Morales. What at times confused the Pilipino was that Morales, who had for several fights tended to arch his shots when flurrying, was in fact, throwing straight power shots while engaging his flurries. At 1:05 of the ninth, “Pac Man” hit and hurt Morales with a lashing left cross and then another, the figure of Morales discharged backward until he regained some footing and then amazingly he stung Pacquiao with his own long range right hand. In those torrid last ten seconds, Morales tried to flurry to the bell, but, it was Pacquiao scoring at the bell to take the 9th in a withering pace of major exchanges.
In the tenth, “Pac Man” tried himself to go for a knockout and then with 1:20 in the round remaining Morales followed up a surgical couple of rights with a bludgeoning right to the head of “Pac Man” – himself throwing hooks in retreat – until along the ropes the Pilipino found daylight to return in kind. Exhaustion seemed to be suspended by mutual agreement, until near ring center with Morales momentarily flamed, Pacquiao drove home seven shots until the warrior in Morales exploded back with a heat seeking hook and left-right to the body and head of his opponent. Then in the final minute, both fighters pressed beyond encumbering lactic acid fatigue, Manny storming the floating defense of “Erik the Great” with right hooks to the body, the resulting give and take pushed to the tolerance level demarcating greatness by both men. All this martial transaction produced with Pacquiao’s protective mouthpiece having fallen out 40 seconds before.
Thirty-nine seconds remaining in the electrified tenth round was when veteran Nevada referee Joe Cortez called for a time out to replace the mouth guard. And in that fractional respite, Morales switched up to have his right hand for a jab late in the tenth, even to hook off it, to pump in numbing head shots, as the fighters look to box and pick each other off with sniper fire. Apparently, being tired was only a state of mind denied by the eleventh round. With his right eye swelling shut, Pacquiao tired to box with Morales taking him up on the idea; Morales’ right hand remaining to the last thee defining power punch at long range in the fight.
For much of the twelfth and final round the fighting was almost beyond words, such was the involuntary ferment of gloved savagery. Greater men had fought lesser battles, the action from first to last adding up to a minor classic of key importance to both fighters. With all the punches exchanged, the issue of the gloves – being the foam filled ‘boxer’s glove’ Winning (Asian gloves), despite Pacquiao having demanded to use the Mexican, horse hair ‘puncher’s glove’ Reyes – used was a talking point without determinative foundation. For the Morales-Pacquiao fight had been sterling and torturous, a struggle of talent and will seldom waged with any greater totality.
And the end result, an adjudicating agreement between all three judges, Paul Smith, Dave Moretti and Chuch Giampa, that the winner was Morales by a score of 115 to 113, proved not only that subtle distinctions are the fictions of rear equivalence exhibited, but that the two men would certainly meet again. The assembled at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas certainly believed they had witnessed the essence of the sport, so did all those watching transfixed to the HBO broadcast.
Saturday night, it will be time to do it all again. Eternal circles, rings of prodigious undertakings, establish fleeting dominances and eternal sporting valor. You cannot help but stray into the realm of poetics when fighters, champions such as Erik Morales and Manny Pacquiao meet at ring center, their bodies outlining archetypes, each drawing upon ancient rituals, and their passions drawn.
