By David P. Greisman
With the football season shoving the talk-overloaded off-season aside and the games with actual meaning finally getting underway, the phrase “Any given Sunday” comes to mind. In American football, the underlying philosophy is that with the general competitive balance, on any given Sunday, one team can beat any other team.
And when a three division champion and future Hall-of-Famer in Erik Morales can lose a lethargic twelve-round decision to an underachieving Olympian named Zahir Raheem, the axiom, “Styles makes fights” proves legitimate. And on this given Saturday, Raheem had the style that made the fight, although not the fight that Morales wanted.
The best-laid plans were thrown to waste as the two-fight infomercial for January’s Morales-Manny Pacquiao rematch ended with Morales being upset by Raheem. As the television cameras captured Pacquiao watching the action, one couldn’t help but be reminded of the look on Antonio Tarver’s face as Glencoffe Johnson knocked out Roy Jones Jr., spoiling the Tarver-Jones rubber match in the process.
Pacquiao had fulfilled his end of the bargain, knocking out a game but outmatched Hector Velazquez after six rounds, coming out unscathed and uninjured, unlike the fates that have afflicted so many others this year, preventing buzz-worthy rematches and mega-events.
Yet it appeared that Morales was sabotaging himself by looking forward and backwards simultaneously, keeping his eyes and mind everything but on Raheem. Morales stepped up a weight division, choosing to move to lightweight in order to set up possible showdowns with either the winner of October’s Diego Corrales-Jose Luis Castillo rematch or another 135-lb. titlist. At the same time, Morales was prepping himself and the audiences for another pay-per-view with Pacquiao at junior lightweight, a war that could be followed with a fourth go-around with Marco Antonio Barrera or various other options.
And while his was the fight that some in the media saw as having the potential for an upset special, nearly all predicted that “El Terrible” had too much skill and power for Raheem. The consensus was that Raheem had speed and slickness, but that his heart was questionable and would fail him if the going got too tough.
What few, if any, expected was that Raheem would pick apart Morales, making the proud Mexican look like the Arturo Gatti to his Floyd Mayweather. Morales’s fundamentals, for some reason, were terrible, and Raheem took advantage of his mistakes and countered him all night. Every time Morales would lean with his punches, Raheem would discern, dodge, defend and deliver, leaving Morales dejected.
Morales landed punches like Shaquille O’Neal sinks free throws, although that comparison is unfair to the Miami Heat center. While Shaq hits it from the charity stripe at least half the time and is in the vicinity for the other fifty percent, Morales was flailing at air thanks to the elusive Raheem.
With only about one in every six of his punches on target and unblocked, everything appeared to be failing Morales. He looked lost, unsure of how to box scientifically after participating in so many brawls and boxer-puncher battles over the years. His father failed him strategically, like has happened to so many other father-son tandems before. Jose Morales seemed more concerned with informing Erik that the referee was against them, a strange idea when the only thing that Jon Schorle did to the detriment of “El Terrible” was miss a knockdown call when Raheem’s glove touched the canvas in round eleven.
By the time the championship rounds started, Morales had awakened from his stupor figured out how to make the fight, but it was too late, as Raheem seemed content to coast on the lead that he had built, leaving Morales’s fate sealed.
Pacquiao-Velazquez, the undercard co-feature, nearly had similar results, as the game Mexican took everything the Pacman had to give in the first two rounds and gave back just as good. But as the fight progressed, Pacquiao’s speed and power advantages began to show, and it may have been that the Filipino Firebomber finally learned how to listen to his trainer Freddie Roach and make adjustments mid-bout.
Surprisingly, it was “Manila Ice,” the right hook that had been publicized prior to March’s Morales-Pacquiao fight only to end up as a non-factor, that made the difference and changed the course of the fight, wobbling Velazquez in the sixth round and setting up the eventual knockdown and stoppage.
Still, Pacquiao, at times, reverted to his bread-and-butter of jab-jab-left cross, and also continued his bad habits of squaring up and leaving himself vulnerable to punches after his offensive spurts. These are the mistakes that allowed Juan Manuel Marquez to rally back and earn a draw, the openings that Morales exploited to take a decision, the consequences of Manny’s power game that may not ever be fully amended.
And yet still, it was Pacquiao, and not Morales, who came out victorious on this given Saturday, and Pacquiao, not Morales, with the confidence and momentum should the two still be facing off in January.
It is now quite intriguing, that Morales is in a position similar to the one that his archrival Marco Antonio Barrera was in following Barrera’s blowout loss to Pacquiao. After that loss, people observed that perhaps Barrera was ring-worn from too many wars, and that finally the hard rounds had caught up with him. It would take a knockout of Paulie Ayala, and even more so the third match with Morales to make a convincing argument that Barrera’s showing was a fluke.
Morales will need to prove that the man we saw lose to Zahir Raheem was not his true self, and that he can once again overcome being terrible and once again become “El Terrible.”
The 10 Count
1. As for the rematch between Morales and Pacquiao, I see no reason that it should not occur, although I do not think that it should be on pay-per-view. Too often, we’ve become caught up in the idea that a pugilist needs to defeat a tune up in order for the mega match to occur. While this could be feasible for title fights, it is silly to think that Pacquiao and Morales still cannot have an entertaining, competitive bout. What may be true, though, is that Morales’s performance is detrimental to possible PPV sales, but a Morales-Pacquiao fight on regular HBO will still draw more eyes than either of those men against most of the other possible opponents out there.
It was possible, during Larry Merchant’s post-fight interview with Morales, to overhear (I believe) Top Rank chief Bob Arum insist that the rematch was still on, and all indicators from the press conference afterwards point to the idea that the train ride to their January bout was not derailed.
2. The crowd at the Staples Center in Los Angeles may have been overwhelmingly pro-Mexican, but the night belonged to Filipino fans. Along with Pacquiao’s stoppage of Velazquez, the undercard saw Brian Viloria knockout Eric Ortiz to capture the WBC junior flyweight belt. Viloria, a Hawaiian citizen of Filipino heritage, needed only one round to dispose of the now-former champion, dropping Ortiz at the end of the stanza. While Ortiz attempted to beat the count, he fell back to the canvas, and “The Hawaiian Punch” is now in a position to either unify at 108 or step up to 112 to throw down with someone like a Jorge Arce.
3. In a rather classy and cathartic gesture, Viloria dedicated his victory to Ruben Contreras, the opponent who lapsed into a coma after losing via technical knockout in May. Contreras recovered, and he and his wife attended Viloria’s fight as a special guest. Although this weekend’s knockout of Ortiz made Viloria the third member of the 2000 U.S. Olympic boxing team to win a world title, it was Viloria’s pre-fight embrace of Contreras that was the true triumphant moment.
4. Not that anyone should be surprised, but the November super middleweight unification bout between IBF titlist Jeff Lacy and WBO beltholder Joe Calzaghe has been called off due to Calzaghe suffering an injury. While shutting out non-contender Evans Ashira over twelve rounds, the Welshman broke his left hand. Depending on your perspective, it was either an eerie or dubious occurrence, considering that in August, Calzaghe wrote in the South Wales Argus, “Lots of things can happen between now and then [November 5th] to upset the applecart, not least among them injuries, and I am a little bit injury prone nowadays. I have had problems with my hand and back on and off over the years. […] My left hand swells up after almost every fight.”
5. Whether Calzaghe’s injury is legitimate or just a ploy, Lacy needs to stay active and continue to face the higher levels of opposition. Following the aftermath of Calzaghe-Ashira, Lacy’s promoter Gary Shaw, threw out the names of Markus Beyer (who owns the WBC strap) and Anthony Mundine (former WBA champ) as possibilities. If neither of these matches can be made, I’d like to see Lacy take on Scott Pemberton. After all, Pemberton beat Omar Sheika in two entertaining slugfests, and yet Sheika has received title shots in his past two bouts (against Lacy and Beyer). Pemberton should also be available, as his fight with Danny Green was called off to Green injuring his back.
6. Rydell Booker, the former cruiserweight prospect whose last appearance was a loss at heavyweight to James Toney, will likely never again enter the ring as a professional fighter. Booker was sentenced to twelve to thirty years in jail for possession of cocaine with intent to deliver, and the incarceration effectively ends the 24-year-old’s career. In a sport that has so often served to get youths off the street and out of trouble, it will always be saddening when a Booker or a Clifford Etienne makes bad decisions that erase the good that they had previously created.
7. Junior middleweight titlist Daniel Santos was once rumored to be facing Cory Spinks, and when that fell out, he found a new opponent in Jose Antonio Rivera. But Rivera got injured, and Santos’s defense was cancelled, and then pushed back off of television until September 30. Now Santos is scheduled to meet the completely unheralded Joe Wyatt, who from my readings most pundits have never heard of. Your Fighting Words scribe, however, saw Wyatt knock out Rashaan Blackburn last December in the small West Virginia town of Chester, located in-between Pennsylvania and Ohio, and can attest to Wyatt’s greenness.
The boxing scene that Wyatt earns his paydays in is one of ham-and-eggers, blue-collar pugilists who recycle opponents and rarely hit the grand stage. While larger names like Vernon Forrest, David Tua and Paul Spadafora have made stops in the Mountain State, Brian Minto is pretty much the only semi-homegrown pugilist to find himself on national television. Unless Wyatt can channel Zahir Raheem and Santos has the kind of off night that plagued Erik Morales, look for Santos to retain easily.
8. Miguel Cotto has an opponent for his September 24 date, and his name is Ricardo Torres. The undefeated Torres has 26 knockouts in his 28 fights and is rated #1 by the WBO, but it is unknown if this late replacement for the injured Gianluca Branco is a sacrifice waiting to happen or the next Humberto Soto. In reviewing Torres’s record, however, it must be noted that he has only fought outside of his native Colombia once (an August TKO of Edwin Vazquez in Puerto Rico), and that thirteen of his wins have come against opponents with absolutely zero wins. According to Boxrec.com, Torres’s conquests had a combined record of 85-145-4, compared with the 503-131-15 ledger sum of Cotto’s foes.
9. You’ve got to be kidding me: Joe Mesi vs. Evander Holyfield in Italy? I hope this is just rhetorical speaking by the two heavyweights, as either man continuing his career would be a tragedy just waiting to happen.
10. Various members of the boxing community have pitched in to assist the victims of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Among the contributors: Vernon Forrest, long recognized for his contributions in public service, funded housing for homeless families and participated in a local telethon; Sycuan Promotions donated $100,000 to the Red Cross; and Don King pledged $10,000 to the Salvation Army, along with percentages of revenue from ringside seats sold for his September 30 card in St. Louis. A big thanks for their generosity, and hopefully others inside and out of the sport will follow suit.
