By Patrick Kehoe

Photo © Chris Cozzone/FightWireImages

“It’s been one of the most peaceful training camps I have ever had.”

Erik Morales seems to be ultra chilled, as he awaits his shot at WBC lightweight title holder David Diaz this Saturday night in Rosemont, Illinois, from the Allstate Arena. Knowing as he does that many in boxing and many among his faithful fans have been calling for him to retire, Morales has moved back up to 135 for one more chance at placing himself somewhere near the centre of big time boxing. His long time promotional house Top Rank are standing by Morales during this, perhaps, his final push for a world championship after suffering defeats at the hands of Zahir Raheem at 135 and twice to Manny Pacquiao at 130.

Trying to emboss the pay per view event with historic relevance the Morales-Diaz title encounter has been given the tag line: The War for 4, in reference to Morales’ attempt to become the first Mexican fighter to hold titles in 4 different weight divisions. With a hall of fame career behind him, Morales – apparently ebbing into his ring dotage – doesn’t need to own the WBC title of the lightweights to be the central figure of this championship fixture.

Diaz, the likeable hometown title holder, attempting to fight well above his pay grade, becomes the other man in the ring, the ancillary figure to Morales’ genius for combative entertainment. And therein lies an irony because the Morales camp have suggested that boxing will be the primary order of the night for Morales this time around and not yet another display of all out martial combat from the moveable trenches ala his robotic effort against Barrera the third time around.

Morales, in his younger days, was anything but a face first warrior. Until his ultra extreme showdown with Marco Antonio Barrera in 2000, Morales was a pernicious boxer puncher working an almost classic jab, hammering the body before delivering long, lashing right hands. What he couldn’t force out of his opponents he was expert in creating, withering resistance from long range, closing off exchanges with hooks to the liver and generally dismantling fearsome foes like the irascible Daniel Zaragoza, the ever ready dynamo Wayne McCullough and Junior Jones, vanquisher of Barrera. Of course, that was during Morales’ ascendancy; Saturday night Erik Morales hopes to perform like a champion and win a belt, making another significant entry in his personal CV as the favourite son of Tijuana boxing.

“I really feel relaxed over all… The only pressure I feel is the pressure I put on myself… You really can’t erase what I have done in the ring.”

Yet there is the turn of the rhetorical screw for Morales, his inflecting tones measuring out words that suggest that he’s been trying to stay as focused as he can be these days concerning his rough trade. He knows better than most that boxing may be about the application of martial technique as adaptive opportunism but being a boxing champion is about securing the mind against the enveloping fog of self-doubt and invasive diffidence. When a fighter cannot find reasons to care about battling on, no matter his possible fate, he succumbs, he’s pulled downward, gravity affixing the tonnage of violating doom, collapsing everything that makes winning possible.

But for now, with the fight a hypothetical problem to be solved by the master, Morales suggests that he’s arrived at a more reasonable weight and he’s fighting a more limited physical force in Diaz. The second part of that sentence has not been offered by Morales directly and yet that is the word from his camp. Team Morales believe that the willing Diaz is not the technical match for Morales and therein lays the opportunity for Morales: If he can out box Diaz. And that’s a massive caveat, almost a stumbling block. Because Morales has been fighting against the better judgment of his father and those who have taken on the task of training him ever since he heard the cat calls when he slapped and dashed his way to an unpopular decision win over In Jin Chi.

Where Marco Antonio Barrera has embraced a hit and move orthodoxy in the second half of his career, Morales for better and worse has engaged opponents with less and less guile, fighting for the adulation of the fans rather than winning with all means necessary, boredom, bating and boxing in as much self-preservation mode as skillful execution of technical flourish. Instead, Morales has stayed in the kill zone, exchanging and putting his blood and crowns directly in danger for the glory of the warrior’s code.

Where Barrera moved toward the Hopkins ultimatum, Morales morphed into a slightly more clinical version of Arturo Gatti. “We have had our great days and our bad nights,” Morales concedes. Truly. As for his capitulation at the hands of Pacquiao in their rubber match November 18, 2006, we are not surprised that Morales puts that down to the strain of fighting at 130lbs. But what of that line he crossed, in sitting on the floor, beaten about the head and body for less than 9 minutes, resigned to his fate against Pacquiao, unwilling to battle to the bitter end?

What does it mean if safety comes first now to Erik Morales; need we sketch an answer?

“There are times that you fight on and there are times when you decide not to!” Can anyone imagine Erik Morales in his real prime ever uttering that phrase? No, we can’t. For it would never have occurred to Morales to decide not to fight on, especially against the mounting odds of a rampaging opponent. For that is the time when a boxing champion reverses the ill tides dead set against him. Under the unremitting hammering of a surging opponent, great fighters such as a prime Erik Morales found almost limitless reserves, fighting until the fight was won or the contest expired.

The great John L. Sullivan retired from the ring giving meaning to such conviction lost: “When you begin to think about the consequences of fighting with everything in you, you have already crossed over the line that marks defeat.”

“I feel really strong at this weight… I didn’t really want to retire until I fought at 135 again and I know I can.” You have to wonder if Morales has a paralleling vision of himself victorious against Diaz, one that shows him outlasting Barrera, his old nemesis, as a championship fighter. With most experts calling the forthcoming Pacquiao-Barrera rematch a sure fire fright night one-sided beat down of Barrera, Morales knows that one night of technical accomplishment over 12 rounds is about the only thing standing in his way of at least symbolically rising above Barrera.

No, you won’t hear that from Morales either, however, surly that calculation has occurred to the pro’s pro himself.

* * *

To know Erik Morales, the public man, you need to see him compete, fighting as willed performance and excellence attempted. In victories over Junior Jones and Marco Antonio Barrera, he seemed to sore, his quiet scream of satisfaction just one form of the purity of his passionate energy harnessed then released to the bitter end. Raising his hands to the heavens, he threw kisses to us and the saints of his deeper meanings. In defeat, his frustration bubbled over as confusion for defiled purposefulness bled of the ability to respond, a glaze forming over his black, widened eyes bore sadness.

All the work Erik Morales has put into his training this summer has been about an act of redemption, principally for losing the will to fight like Erik Morales. You can pick any of his most recent fights. The very real question of recovery of essence, to re-solidify the metal of ultimate daring, those are the things Erik Morales’ fans ponder, as their man seeks his fourth world championship, now at lightweight.

The hope for Morales and his team is that the man from Tijuana can fight the fight needed to win. Does Morales understand that he doesn’t need to win over the fans; they want him to succeed, not by turning back the metaphorical clock, but, by simply fighting with the intelligence he’s always had at his disposal yet only selectively employed over the last 8 years. With tactical options open to him, Morales and his team see the Diaz fight as logical, winnable, a distinguishing check mark, if not really an open license to fight anyone, anytime. Thus, the question becomes: Just how sensibly will Morales allow himself to engage the over achieving David Diaz?

Perhaps, Morales, not the fighter he once was, is willing to live within his technical means and box his way to a title win, utilizing his experience, his intelligence and, at the very last, a combativeness proportional to the foe and the fight materializing before him. Though, there are no guarantees, no perfect solutions to the problems that emerge in the squared circle’s geometry of entrapment and ambush. Morales may be all illusion now; that too looms as a sobering possibility.

Old fighters become resigned to their fates as the portals of recourse close before them and they are left abandoned, unarmed, moving unto an inexorable truth. Morales has been searching for a template, a guide to find all of the reasons to fight for his right to once again be worthy of being a champion. In that sense, Morales is an honest man. In training, he’s sensed the repertoire that made him a legend. And yes, he needs to find himself capable of being an athletic force before he can ever make a conquest of commonsense. Though commonsense has a damning assessment of Erik Morales, the Erik Morales of 2007 a man incapable of winning in 4 of his last five ring outings. No matter the issue of his long struggles to make various weights, champions find ways to over come adversity, as he once did.

“I have accomplished more than I ever dreamed I would… I don’t really know if I can put into words just how good this camp was and how good I feel about this fight.” Yes, a champion in Diaz who’s feasted on B-level opposition all the way to the top. Is this a guy made for a Morales return? Morales feels Diaz is in over his head and doesn’t know it. Team Diaz are respectful, but, they believe that Morales is long past his best, dangerous though he may be early.

In all of this, Morales is willing to face up to the limiting danger of defeat for the chance at glory and something like a modest sense of redemption. Perhaps, his next win will be about redemption, for now, he’s willing to return to his winning ways, the ways of a champion, or at least a guy with a belt. Yes, the assumptions Morales is obliged to make are glaringly obvious

Either way, Morales may be dreaming. So much ado for a lost cause he cannot see. The lamb being lead to the ritual of the slaughter. Diaz using the old king as a way to make a name for himself and justify his claim to matters concerning championships. Now that’s the tragedy impending, if things are as dire for Morales as so many believe.

Disdaining the idea of being yesterday’s man, Morales keeps his defiance intact, fuel for the battle to come. And isn’t part of being a legend making miracles happen, bending time itself?

Sure… and when all seems lost all you can do is hope… and pray… and believe in what no one else can see.

Patrick Kehoe maybe reached at pkehoe@telus.net