LAS VEGAS – Will somebody please book Manny Pacquiao a berth in the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF)?
While getting enshrined in the prestigious body would only come after his retirement, Pacquiao showed on Saturday night why he deserves to be mentioned on the same breath with the greats of the sport as he destroyed the previously-indestructible Erik Morales in front of 14,618 at the Thomas and Mack Center.
But pulling off the trick – a masterpiece 10th-round stoppage – against the never-been-stopped Morales did not come in handy.
Pacquiao had to eat a sledgehammer Morales right straight in the first round, take several piston-like left jabs from start to finish before scoring his biggest victory to date, surpassing even another masterful performance against another fabled Mexican, Marco Antonio Barrera, in late-2003.
The end came for Morales at 2:33 when Pacquiao, 27, dropped him for the second time in the round with an avalanche of punches.
Referee Kenny Bayless did not even bother to count as Morales, 29, had been down earlier from a jarring left.
All three judges had Pacquiao winning at the time of the stoppage. Paul Smith and Jerry Roth both saw it 87-84, while Dave Moretti had it 86-85.
With a large Philippine contingent behind every punch he threw, Pacquiao thus cemented his status as an all-time great considering the caliber of the opponent he just beat up.
Pacquiao had been criticized as being a one-dimensional slugger who only has got a left hand to show.
But in dismantling the iron-chinned Morales, who had never been put away in over 50 fights, Pacquiao proved he’s got a pair of fists that could bore holes into a sandbag.
The power on his hands was so devastating that shots to the ribcage and abdomen ripened Morales up for the kill.
Pacquiao struck with deadly intent that when the third man on the ring intervened, there was no protest that came from Morales’s camp.
So drained of his strength and overwhelmed was Morales that in the end, his face looked as though somebody hit it with a baseball bat. Pacquiao’s face was also marked with bruises, but the pain that he felt was from the swollen left hand that he used in re-arranging the Mexican’s facial features.
Morales was taken to the Valley Medical center for “precautionary measures,” according to promoter Bob Arum and could be suffering from a broken nose.
While Pacquiao took the opening round, it was Morales who came up with the round’s most terrifying shot, a right straight to the kisser of the Filipino, who later denied that he’d been hurt.
“I wasn’t hurt,” said Pacquiao. “I was just off-balanced.”
Later in his majestic suite at the Wynn Las Vegas, Pacquiao said he never thought about losing the fight.
“I was confident that I can really beat him.
In the sixth round, I knew I already had him because his punches were no longer strong and he really looked tired,” said Pacquiao, who raised his win-loss-draw record to 41-3-2 with 32 knockouts.
Morales said later that he had a hard time making the limit of 130 lbs, although he did not say that this was the reason why he lost.
His record dropped to 48-4 with 23 wins inside the distance.
It was Morales’s second straight setback following a loss to Zahir Raheem in September in Los Angeles.
This was the first time Morales lost back-to-back bouts.
