PACQUIAO DEFEATS MORALES

Manny Pacquiao delivered a spectacular performance against Erik Morales, winning the rematch by TKO in round 11.

Saturday, January 21, 2006 - by Bert Sugar

Stripped of its fig leaf, the story of the Pacquiao-Morales rematch was almost a glove story. Almost, but not quite. In their first go-round Manny Pacquiao was contractually forced to wear Asian "Winning" gloves; in the rematch he wore Reyes gloves. The difference? " The "Winning" gloves, called by many of those who use them "Pillows," are filled with a soft foam that not only absorbs much of the impact of a punch, both for the puncher and the punchee, but also are harder to grip and make a fist with. The Reyes gloves, on the other hand --or hands, if you will--are filled with horsehair and are thinner, enabling the wearer to grip his fist. They are, not incidentally, also far less absorbent, leaving those hit with a Reyes glove able to feel their opponent's knuckles through the padding.

And so it was that Pacquiao wore the Reyes "Puncher's" gloves while Morales, like Floyd Mayweather Jr. and others, wore the "Winning" glove to protect his hands.

However, there was more to the story than just the gloves. It was also about what went into them--namely the hands. For, in their first fight Pacquiao had performed as a one-handed fighter, his left a repeating decimal while his right came along mostly for decoration. Figuring that two hands was the union allowance for hands, trainer Freddie Roach worked on the "Pacman's" right, honing his right jab and installing a dynamite right hook to go with his blasting cap left.

Almost from the git-go both the g1oves and the newly-minted rights of Pacquiao were in evidence as he brought the fight to Morales, the dues-paying fans' expectation of a slugging match quenched faster than a thirst. However Morales, hardly given to pacifism, not only stood his ground, but countered with his right every time the "Pacman" unloaded his lethal left, both fresco' ing their adversary rather merely lacing him gingerly.

After each had withstood the onslaught of the other for the first two rounds, Morales took control of the fight for the next three, keeping Pacquiao at the end of his long left jab. Still, Pacquiao was threading the needle with his left, landing it between Mora1es' g1oves.

But come the sixth the fight turned as Pacquiao came on like a man possessed, throwing, and landing, both rights and lefts to Morales' face and rearranging his Aztec-like features. Morales' face also began to take on a "did-you-get-the-license-plate-number-of-the-truck-that-hit-me" look as Pacquiao, now in the belief that it was better to give than receive, showered his munificence on the head--and sometimes the body--of the fast-fading Morales.

By the eighth, with his legs declining to fulfill the obligations they had sworn to uphold--and demanding they be massaged between rounds---the Mexican great was stammering on his feet, his punches having about the same effect as a deck chair blowing off the decks of the QEII. Meanwhile, the "Pacman" was playing Morales like a fisherman a salmon, all the while giving lie to the slander he had no right hand by unloading his right, with the sound of the slap of surf hitting shore before following up with even a heavier-sounding left.

The ending in the l0th was inevitable as Morales, his legs having gone south and his punches coming at the pace of a responsive reading, stood in front of Pacquiao with a dull resignation to his fate. And while he threw a couple of rights in a feeble attempt to stuff the toothpaste back into the tube, Pacquiao came acoming, finally capping his non-stop assault with one pluperfect left, toppling Morales to the canvas for the first time in his career. (Yes, figure filberts will point out that he had hit the canvas once before, but that was more a "pushdown" than a "knockdown.")

Barely climbing back up to his feet at the count of nine, Morales stood there, almost defenseless, as Pacquiao continued to practice unspeakable acts of destruction on his foe, finally driving him to the floor with a punctuation-point left after a volley-and-a-half of lefts and rights. That was enough for referee Kenny Bayless even if it wasn't for Morales and he waved the fight over at 2:33 of the 10th round.

Afterward, Morales would say that he had fallen to the canvas down "because I was tired" from " making weight." However, if truth be told, it was not Morales' weight but Pacquiao's gloves and right hands that reversed his first-fight loss to Morales. And put the "Pacman" in the position to make money that hasn't even been printed yet.