General Admission

 

Pacquiaomania
By Al S. Mendoza

 

 

 

Its been almost two weeks now but Pacquiaomania is still very much with us.  People just couldn’t   stop jubilating over Manny Pacquiao’s sensational 10th-round victory over Erik Morales of Tijuana, Mexico, on Jan. 22 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I’m not surprised one bit.

Pacquiao’s victory has not only produced a genuine Filipino hero in Pacquiao, it also manufactured a rallying point for the Filipino people.

Much has been said about how Pacquiao’s triumph has made us all united again.

Yes, that’s true.  Pacquiao has made us one again.

But not to downgrade that fact, fellas, but weren’t we also united the first time Pacquiao fought Morales, which was on March 19, 2005?

We all stood behind him, too, cheered him on, and even wept when we saw him lose to Morales via a 12-round decision 10 months ago. It was a defeat made more painful by the fact that Pacquiao suffered a head-butt on the right eyebrow in the fifth round. That injury was the turning point of the fight as the momentum drastically, if not tragically, shifted into Morales’ favor.

Even the best boxers in the world could not win fights while fighting with just one good eye. 

Pacquiao had practically fought Morales with one good eye in the last seven rounds of their first fight.  Despite that handicap, Pacquiao gave Morales hell and, near the end of the 12th round, nearly decked the Mexican.

Had the bell ending the fight rang a little longer; Pacquiao might have knocked out Morales.

And, yes, had there been a 13th round in their first encounter, who knows, Pacquiao might have knocked out Morales.

But that’s all water under the bridge now, so to speak.

Before their second fight, Morales said Pacquiao didn’t hurt him.

That’s bull, of course. Baloney. 

Morales’  knees and legs shook in the 12th and had Pacquiao’s vision not been impaired by blood oozing from his injured eyebrow, who knows what might happened next to the Mexican.

After their second fight, Morales, never been knocked out in 51fights prior to the Jan. 22 clash with Pacquiao, said he was weakened by the reduction of weight before his 130-lb encounter with Pacquiao.

Again, that’s bull. Baloney.

And I thought Morales was game?  A man of stature like Morales shouldn’t give such alibi, such crap.

Of course, he was weakened by the rain of punches thrown his way by the unrelenting Pacquiao, who was so strong he appeared he could go 20 rounds nonstop against Morales.

Any boxer would not have survived Pacquiao in this night of nights. The 27-year-old pride of GenSan was so superbly conditioned he could have fought Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera the same night and won by knockout.

The bombardment alone reduced Morales into a virtual banana trunk getting chopped down by telling body blows.

The head hits, the shots to the face, ugh!, they really so hurt Morales that the three-time world champion didn’t  know anymore where he was after he fell the second time in the 10th – forcing American  referee Kenneth Bayless to rule a TKO win for Pacquiao.

At 29, Morales looked like a 50-year-old washout after the fight. He was a pathetic sight. If he fights Pacquiao a third time, no I won’t call it a mismatch.

It will be suicide for the man they call El Terrible.

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