by Jeremy "Fasttalker" Bjornberg - 11/14/2005
Two years ago almost to the day southpaw Manny Pacquiao (40-3, 32 KO) shockingly destroyed the legendary Marco Antonio Barrera in a one-sided beating. Manny eventually stopped Barrera in the 11th round to earn a spot in the illustrious Ring Magazine pound-for-pound top 10. Many boxing fans and experts felt Pacquiao could even have been the best fighter in the world.
Pacquiao was seemingly unstoppable and after dumping Barrera he jumped right into a unification bout with Juan Manuel Marquez. I have been to countless boxing matches but this was one of the most exciting. Pacquiao dropped Marquez three times in the first round alone with straight lefts and a KO win seemed inevitable.
Marquez was able to weather the storm and came back in the fight, which was actually ruled a draw. A draw might have been the right call, as it was definitely close on a points scale. As far as a round scale, Marquez simply dominated. After round one Manny won maybe two more rounds and was easily outboxed and counterpunched through most of the fight.
A rematch was highly anticipated but silly posturing by Marquez's managers caused a standstill. Manny then moved onto bigger (135) and better ($) things as he took a tune-up and then signed on to fight Mexico's other legend, Erik Morales. Manny opened up as a stunning +220 on some clueless sportsbooks. Morales actually was facing his first underdog situation, shocking considering he had faced Barrera three times!
Morales was motivated about being a +180 underdog (by fight time) and he took it as a personal slight. Morales sparred with wiz kid lefty Edwin Valero and it was broadcast on Maxboxing.com causing even more people to call a Pacquiao rout. Valero was nailing Morales with quick lefts and money in Vegas started tilting even more towards Pacquiao.
The line also went down close to 100 points on the day of the fight as Pacquiao's fans and gambling "experts" threw endless dollars on the champion. Doc's was actually never fooled by this fight. Doc's picked Morales to win by decision from the beginning and it wasn't just because of Erik's thick resume of Hall of Fame wins. We knew that Morales had the kind of boxing skills and chin that would stand up to a one-dimensional puncher like Pacquiao.
Early in the fight Morales showed Pacquiao who was the bigger puncher then he started with the boxing lesson. Morales easily beat Pacquiao, the only fear coming in the last round when the brave Mexican switched to southpaw to slug it out with Manny. Morales was dazed on a few occasions but was also landing plenty of leather.
This win was one of Doc's biggest of the year and many customers took home a lot of easy coin on this battle.
Since the Morales loss Manny has rebounded well with a tune-up KO but Morales was shockingly upset on the same card by Zahir Raheem. Pacquiao seemed as if he had his heart broken when the fight was announced as it looked like the rematch would be shelved a la the Marquez fight. Thankfully for all of boxing, the fighters decided to rematch anyways and Jan. 21 we all get another treat and Manny gets his chance to be the "man" again.
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