THE CAMP of Erik Morales is trying to enlist the help of a weight-control expert to make sure that the rubbermatch against Manny Pacquiao is not derailed by a technicality over weight limit.
Bob Arum of Top Rank who is promoting the third bout between the two fighters, is eying the services of Tiburcio Garcia, a Mexican who is well known in the trade as a topnotch nutritionist whose forte is making sure that boxers make the weight limit without sacrificing their effectivity.
Garcia has served some of the world’s finest fighters such as super-lightweight Jose Luis Castillo and flyweight Jorge Arce whose career blossomed through his weight training techniques.
Arum told the Las Vegas Review-Journal over the weekend that if Garcia agrees to join the team of Morales, he’s certain that Morales would make the weight limit of 130-lb which is stipulated in the return-bout contract of Pacquiao and Morales.
Morales had hinted that he preferred fighting at 132 lbs, but Pacquiao said the contract must be honored otherwise he will opt out of the fight and seek another opponent.
The Pacquiao-Morales fight has been set in late-October or early-November. In the event the bout is cancelled, Pacquiao has a ready opponent in Marco Antonio Barrera.
Informed of Arum’s plan to hire Garcia, Pacquiao sounded unalarmed.
“At 130 lbs, Morales’ chances of winning (against me) is 15 to 20 percent,” Pacquiao said yesterday from General Santos City as he was meeting with Sen. Francis Pangilinan, who relayed to the boxer the passing of a Senate resolution praising his last ring triumph.
Although Morales was able to make the 130-lb limit the last time they fought in January at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas, the Mexican appeared to be weakened by efforts to make the 130-lb limit.
Even the decision to tap a new trainer in Jose Luis Lopez – in place of his long-time trainer Jose “Olivaritos” Morales who hapens to be his father – did not produce the desired result.
Arum is optimistic that Garcia’s inclusion will do wonders in Morales’ quest to avenge a 10th-round knockout loss to the Filipino southpaw.
While Morales will opt to rest instead of engaging in a tuneup fight before the third clash, Pacquiao will keep himself busy by facing Oscar Larios of Mexico on July 2 at the Araneta Coliseum.
Pacquiao leaves on May 5 for the US and then the following day watch Oscar Dela Hoya collide with Ricardo Mayorga of Nicaragua at the MGM Grand.
He begins training for the Larios fight on May 8.
