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McCullough Wants to Train Morales For Pacquiao III
By Will "The Thrill Trillo
Wayne McCullough is "calling out" Erik Morales, But not to fight him. McCullough wants to train the Mexican great, Boxing2006 has learned.
McCullough, who is not officially retired and is hoping to fight junior featherweight champ Israel Vasquez, sent a fax and email to directly Morales' and his right hand man and advisor, Fernando Beltran this week to find out if they were interesting in giving Wayne an "audition," with the hopes that the Irish former champion would be in their corner for Morales rematch with Manny Pacquiao on Sept. 16. The McCulloughs are eager to hear an answer.
"I told them (Morales camp) that Wayne would love to work with him," said McCullough's manager/wife Cheryl. "I said if Erik liked it he would stay, or if he didn't like it, Wayne would walk away. I also said Wayne could take him (Morales) back to the top of his game."
McCullough, unlike many boxing observers, does not think Morales' career is close to over.
"I believe Eric Morales is not done," McCullough said. "I think it (Jan. loss to Pacquiao) was partly the fault of conditioning and nutrition."
In addition to boxing, McCullough has been a personal trainer and nutritionist for several years, and recently tried his hand at training.
McCullough spent six weeks working with highly-ranked junior lightweight contender Alex Arthur (22-1) for his Feb. 18 fight with Ricky Burns for three junior lightweight titles -- European, British, and Commonwealth.
Arthur won a unanimous decision by a wide margin, and more importantly, many boxing insiders said the Scottish fighter had never looked better.
"A lot of people thought Alex would be too much for me to train," McCullough said. "But then they saw me in his corner. Alex got a cut over his left eye in the third round, McCullough calmed him down while the cutman worked, and "people told me later how well I had worked." The commentator, former WBA featherweight champ and Irish icon, Barry McGuigan said, "Wayne is going to be the next Buddy McGirt."
What McCullough did for Arthur is teach him some of Morales' moves.
"Alex fights like Morales, he stands straight up," McCullough said. "I had Alex watch tapes of Morales fights. He saw that Erik stood straight up, but with his chin in, always moving and picking his shots, using the double jab and straight right to the body."
McCullough knows first hand what Morales is capable of doing. On Oct. 22, 1999, McCullough fought then unbeaten Morales (34-0) for the WBC junior featherweight title and lost a unanimous decision
"He fought me hard all 12 rounds, so I know he is capable of carrying his punch the distance," said McCullough, whose six losses have all came in championship fights. "I love the way he fights. He's an all-time great."
McCullough feels Pacquiao was only able to stop Morales in the 10th round because Erik was not in top condition.
"I thought Erik was winning the fight after five rounds, then he made the mistake of laying on the ropes," McCullough said. "Once he stopped moving, it was over. I think it was his conditioning because he just suddenly hit a stone wall. With the right conditioning, he could have coped. Look how easily he won the first (Pacquiao) fight."
Some would think the 35-year-old McCullough (27-6) is being a bit presumptuous asking to train an all-time great Mexican fighter with limited training experience. But he comes very highly recommended. In fact, what better recommendation could there be than the late Hall of Fame trainer Eddie Futch.
In 1993, Futch was training A-list boxers Mike McCallum, Rid**** Bowe and Montell Griffin in Las Vegas. McCullough was just an unbeaten, little known prospect in his first year of professional boxing, yet Wayne was brought over from Ireland to work with Eddie. Eddie was the only reason why Wayne left Belfast for the States.
"I got him to see me fight, and he said later that I could be a champion," McCullough recalled. "I worked with him a while and he gave me a letter saying I would make a great trainer some day. My eyes just opened up watching Eddie. The way he was so calm all the time, all the tricks he knew."
McCullough knew back then that one day he would have to try his hand at training.
"If I didn't pass on what Eddie taught me, I would be selfish," McCullough said.
As for McCullough fighting again, he only wants to do so if it's for a title. McCullough lost his last two fights to WBC junior featherweight champion, Oscar Larios.
Their last meeting, on July 16 of 2005, McCullough was stopped on a 10th round TKO, a bitter and frustrating decision because he took pride in never having been stopped before.
McCullough pleaded to be able to go on, but the fight was stopped, which he said was a case of the referee and ring doctor ignoring his history of going the distance.
Larios went on to lose his title in his next fight to Israel Vasquez, and McCullough has made no secret of the fact he has little respect for Vasquez and can beat him.
"We're talking to Sycuan Promotions who promote Vazquez , it's not over," said McCullough. There is also the chance that Wayne could end up in the ring with Ponce De Leon, who is also on McCullough's short list.
In the meantime, McCullough is hoping to get a different kind of shot -- training a world class fighter like Erik Morales. McCullough and Morales are both great warriors, and Boxing.2006 is looking forward to seeing what happens if they hook up.
After the Larios fight, McCullough went through a whole battery of tests and was given a clean bill of health. But Wayne's former trainer, Freddie Roach, came out publicly and said McCullough should retire and he would not longer train him, a statement that got right under the skin of Cheryl McCullough who retorted, " Wayne hasn't trained one day with Freddie since his last fight and it was made very clear to us when we started training with him that he worked fight to fight. In fact, last October, I asked Joe Goossen to work with him instead, so Freddie couldn't drop Wayne because he didn't have him.
"I like Freddie, but what he did was unprofessional," McCullough said. "We should have talked this over behind closed doors. My wife is my biggest critic and manager. She would tell me when I was done before anyone. She was disgusted the fight was stopped. She could see I was fine."
Gran Campeon
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