Signs begin to show when losses accumulate at an uncommon rate. Invincibility suddenly is replaced with the tag fighters dread — “career on the decline.”
Once a familiar entry on the best ”pound-for-pound” fighters list, Erik Morales now battles skeptics over the knock that his best battles are reserved for historical reference. Three losses in his previous four fights have Morales on the wrong end of the crossroads.
But the former super-bantamweight, featherweight and super-featherweight champion can veer in the right track again with his tiebreaking third match against Manny Pacquiao on Saturday night in Las Vegas. Morales will seek to avenge a 10th-round TKO loss against Pacquiao in January and prove the doubters wrong.
”You know, anybody can write or say whatever they want; It is just words,” Morales said in a recent conference call. “Yes, I care about all of that, and I also heard Pacquiao say that I’m an old man, that I’m done.”
Evidence in Morales’ recent performances give critics ample ammunition. In addition to the second Pacquiao fight, Morales, 30, lost a lopsided decision against Zahir Raheem in September 2005 and also lost a decision in the third of his three bouts against Marco Antonio Barrera in November 2004.
The only victory to offset the negative trend was Morales’ unanimous decision in his first fight against Pacquiao in March 2005.
”We’ll see [Saturday],” Morales said. “That’s why we go up in the ring, to prove our worth, and I’ll prove what I am.”
BROCK UNSUCCESSFUL
Calvin Brock failed to follow Shannon Briggs’ lead.
Attempting to become the second American fighter to win a heavyweight title in successive weeks, Brock was stopped in seven rounds by International Boxing Federation champion Wladimir Klitschko late Saturday in New York.
Klitschko, of Ukraine, staggered Brock with a left hook followed by a straight right to the head midway through the seventh. Kitschko (47-3, 42 KOs) stalked Brock (29-1) and eventually floored his challenger face first with a left jab-short right combination to the head.
A groggy Brock reached his feet before the 10 count, but referee Wayne Kelly sensed the challenger had not shaken off the knockdown’s effects and stopped the fight at 2:10 of the round.
”It was a good experience to go through another undefeated fighter,” Klitschko, who also defeated previously unbeaten contender Samuel Peter last September, said in the ring after the fight. “Calvin Brock, in my opinion, is the best heavyweight out there, even though he doesn’t have a belt.”
With Klitschko’s victory, three of the current heavyweight champions are from Eastern Europe and have links to the former Soviet Union. Briggs, a Pembroke Pines resident, is the lone American with a heavyweight belt after his 12th-round TKO victory against Sergei Liakhovich to win the World Boxing Organization title Nov. 4.
LOCAL SCENE
Boxers from Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties will compete in a 15-bout amateur card Saturday afternoon at the Tropical Park Gym.
Bout slots are still available, according to Robert Daniels, Miami-Dade County Parks’ director of amateur boxing. For information, call 305-221-0678 or 305-835-7816.
The card starts at 2 and admission is $5.
