“I expected a long tough fight,” Pacquiao said. “I thank God nobody was hurt. That’s what I prayed for.”
Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao erased all doubts of his dominance with a third round demolition of Mexico’s great Erik “El Terrible” Morales at the Thomas and Mack Center on Saturday. It might be the end for Morales. It was the third meeting between the two little giants and Pacquiao (43-3-2, 33 KOs) repeated his last fight with a knockout over Morales (48-5, 24 KOs) for the second time in a year. This time 18,276 people showed up, the second largest in the Las Vegas arena’s history. The crowd seemed to be evenly split for the two prizefighters.
Though a minor title was awarded to the victor, there was much more at stake considering two boxing nations such as the Philippines and Mexico take massive pride in their boxer’s accomplishments. Before the fight began, thousands of fans engaged in flag waving and cheers for their fighters. Even the singing of the national anthems had significance.
Pacquiao and Morales began the first round slowly as each gauged the other’s speed and strength. Toward the end of the first round, Pacquiao opened up and Morales answered.
The next round saw both open up with their big guns, but a left hand counter by the Filipino fighter dropped Morales on the seat of his pants. He got up and exchanged vicious blows with Pacquiao.
“He was surprised by my right hook. I hurt him in the second round,” said Pacquiao, who trained for all three fights with Morales in Hollywood. “I knew in that round that I really hurt him.”
Morales looked to win back the momentum and stepped up his attack, but a right hook shocked the Tijuana boxer and a left hand follow up knocked down Morales for the second time in the fight. He jumped up at the count of eight but found the speedy Pacquiao’s volume of punches much too blinding and held on. That only resulted in a brief respite, a long left hand by the Filipino finished off Morales who was counted out by referee Vic Drakulich at 2:57 of the third round.
“I expected a long tough fight,” Pacquiao said. “I thank God nobody was hurt. That’s what I prayed for.”
Before the fight Morales had sought help from a strength and conditioning gym in Santa Monica. But though he made the required 130-pound limit, nothing could stop Pacquiao from steamrolling him flat.
“Pacquiao was too much,” said Morales, adding that his corner yelled for him to get up in the third round. “But you need to know when you’re beaten. I was beaten tonight.”
After the fight, Morales walked up to Pacquiao to shake his hand and bow to his victor. Morales had won their first encounter but was knocked out the next two meetings.
“If I fight again it will be in Tijuana,” Morales said.
For Pacquiao, two boxing promotion companies are fighting for the right to promote the popular Filipino.
Source: Click Here
No related posts.
Tweet This Post!
Browse Timeline
Want to share this post? Give me a Linkback!
If you found this page useful, consider linking to it.
Simply copy and paste the code below into your web site (Ctrl+C to copy)
It will look like this: Pacquiao-Morales Trilogy
Add a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
