ERIK'S LAST STAND?

by Ron Borges

The price of the life he has chosen hangs from the sad-eyed edges of Erik Morales' high cheekbones. He is an old man at 30.

On Nov. 18, one of the greatest Aztec warriors Mexico has ever produced will try mightily to turn back the clock when he steps into the ring at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas to face Manny Pacquiao for the third and final time. Unlike their first two meetings, few people expect things to go well for Morales, who was stopped by Pacquiao in January after 10 grueling rounds in which Morales aged noticeably from the first bell to the moment referee Kenny Bayless had to step in and rescue him before Pacquiao damaged him further. It was the third time in his last four fights that Morales had been beaten and each defeat was more one-sided than its predecessor, a universal sign in boxing that the cruelest sport has left you behind.

It has been 10 months since that night though, time enough for a proud man who has defeated everyone worth the challenge since he first turned professional 14 years ago to suffer with boxing's most necessary malady - amnesia. He has forgotten all about Pacquiao standing over him after twice driving him to the floor. He has forgotten the pain, the bruises and the need to wear dark glasses when the moon was out. That is what great fighters must do. They must forget the past if they are to have a future.

Certainly no one knows that more than Morales, who has been a professional since the day he slipped between the ropes at age 16 in a bullring in Tijuana and beat up a kid named Marco Tovar at a time when no one knew much about either of them. It has been over 14 years since then and between Tovar and a third battle with Pacquiao, Morales has faced 52 men and beaten 48 of them. Until two years ago, Marco Antonio Barrera, himself a Mexican legend, was the only fighter to ever get the better of Morales but then began the hard rain that seems to hit all fighters, great and not so great, when the end is near. It has been a storm of punches, the kind one can no longer shake so easily at Morales' weather-beaten advanced years.

They came from Barrera again, who won a majority decision in a hotly disputed rubber match with Morales almost exactly two years ago to the night he will face Pacquiao for a third time. They came from a nondescript former U.S. Olympian named Zahir Raheem when Morales decided to move up to lightweight after struggling for too long to keep his protesting body at 130 pounds following his win over Pacquiao last year.

It was against Raheem that things began to unravel noticeably, for much was still expected of Morales that night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Much was expected but nothing was there and Morales lost a one-sided unanimous decision in which one of the judges awarded him only two rounds. It was then that the debate began over whether he was suddenly damaged goods at 29 or simply a man who went one weight class above his limitations after having become only the second Mexican fighter to win world titles in three different weight classes. Julio Cesar Chavez had been the first, the grande campion of grande campions in Mexico. To be in the same discussion with Chavez was enough for Morales, who had grown up idolizing him as nearly every Mexican fighter of the past 20 years has.

Wisely he quickly moved back to 130 to try and re-establish himself last January after three months rest. Unwisely he chose Pacquiao as his foil, perhaps believing nothing would change from when he had outpointed the powerful Filipino former world champion 10 months earlier.

Like all fighters, Morales has explanations for the disaster that befell him that night. He talks of weight problems and turmoil within his camp that led to his father not being in his corner for the first time in his career. He talks of being ill-prepared and weakened by his fight with the scales, the battle that preceded the actual one with Pacquiao. They sound like excuses and perhaps they are but fighters live in a world of denial and self-delusion. It can be no other way, for if they were realists they would have taken day jobs long ago rather than risk themselves in so savage a work place.

So while the boxing world now doubts Erik Morales, he rationalizes away what other's eyes tell them, insisting he has never been more ready to fight. Never more fit. Never more lean. Never more hungry. It is what old champions tell themselves when the shadows have begun to lengthen and they are hoping for one more bright morning before the winter of their career arrives.

"The first fight (with Pacquiao) I needed the win,'' Morales (48-4, 34 KO) said from his training camp in Mexico. "I needed to get back credibility (after losing by majority decision to Barrera in that third fight). I prepared myself well and it showed. The second fight I made too many changes in my camp. This fight we went back to basics.

"I know what people are saying. Anybody can write or say what they want. It's just words. Pacquiao says I'm an old man. That I'm done. I'll prove what I am on Nov. 18. I will show I can still be at the top level.''

Defiant words from someone who has convinced many men they were ill-advised to step in with him but they are also coming from the mouth of a scarred fighter who has fought many battles. Too many in the opinion of most people in boxing for there are limits, the old trainers and fight guys understand, even to greatness.

Greatness erodes slowly, like hard flint, but with time and the consequences of winning great battles in the manner Morales has so often won them, pieces of a man are chipped away and left behind in arenas around the world. They are pieces that cannot be replaced, gifts given away in the pursuit of excellence in the boxing ring.

Victory has often come at the cost of bruising, exhaustion and the spilling of Morales' own blood, and it has been his willingness to pay that price which has made him a legend in Mexico and with anyone who fancies the kind of fights super bantamweights, featherweights and super featherweights so often engage in. It is hand-to-hand warfare of a primal nature that has been Morales' calling card all these years, but there is a price that is extracted for walking such a road. If you survive it for as long as he has, you may become a star but at 30 your star may already be in nova.

Morales understands this for he has not lived this life blindly. He has taken advantage of old champions himself years ago, never thinking one day he might be on the opposite side of that equation. Pacquiao, only three years his junior but far less used up despite having been stopped twice himself early in his career, is among those who believes it is his time now, not Erik Morales'. He has youth, strength and punching power on his side, plus confidence born from having left Morales helpless on the floor 11 months ago, badly beaten and defenseless at the end.

For Morales then, Nov. 18 will be a night of high pressure. To lose again to an elite opponent, to lose for the fourth time in his last five fights, will be a signal that there is no place to go but back home to Tijuana to ponder a life without rationalizations. At this point, he can still tell himself of too many changes in his camp and too much weight to lose in too short a time and believe it is all true. But to be bested by Pacquiao a second time would leave him with little room for self-delusion.

He might fight on despite another defeat but no longer would he still believe he is who he once was. At least not in the dark hours before dawn, when he is alone with his aches and pains and the undeniable presence of a string of losses where once there was nothing but victory.

That is for another night however, a night he doesn't believe will come on Nov. 18. "El Terible," "The Terrible One,'' as he is known in Mexican boxing circles, thinks nothing of that fate because he sees no such outcome. He sees a different Morales this time, one who is fit and ready, with his father behind him and nothing in front of him that he doesn't know how to handle.

"I'm going to be as ready as I've ever been to fight,'' he insists.

"I feel very good. I feel no pressure. I know what I needed to do and I done it. I don't see why there should be any pressure on me. I took a long time to drop weight this time. I know I'll be real strong.

"Everyone knows I had trouble making the weight. As you get older you have to be more conscious of that. That's why I took so long to get ready.

I've heard him say I'm not going to make 130. Well, as far as I'm concerned there is going to be a fight on Nov. 18. I hope he's ready for one.''

Pacquiao will be but perhaps not for the Morales he will be facing.

This Morales has spent months working with a exercise physiologist named Jorgen Persson, who works for Velocity Sports Performance. That's a West L.A. fitness training outfit who Morales' promoter, Bob Arum, insisted he work with at his training camp at the Otomi High Altitude Training Center in the mountains above Toluca, Mexico to slowly reduce his weight without losing his strength.

Morales trained there without Persson for his first fight with Morales and won but chose not to return there to prepare for the rematch and suffered first a battle with his weight and then one with Pacquiao that he could not handle. Now he has gone back to the mountains with his father and a new fitness expert and the result has been a gradual weight loss that will have him only two pounds over the 130-pound super featherweight limit when he arrives in Las Vegas a week before the fight. What that truly means is anyone's guess but this time Morales believes he will be as ready as he can be. He will be at his optimum. Whether he will still be "El Terible''

is another matter however, one that Manny Pacquiao and the ravages of time will have an opinion on, too. "I'll try to do the best I can,'' Morales said. "I'll try to give everyone a show. No one has ever booed me out of the ring. That's not going to happen to me. I've taken this very seriously.

"This is a very important fight I know I need to win. Without a doubt I've been in a lot of very tough fights along the road but a lot of my (past) problems have been from making weight. For this fight I feel very good. When I look at myself, I look very good. We'll see how I look Nov. 18. Then we'll decide what I do next.''

Not even Erik Morales knows what that will be but he does know one thing. He knows what he will do come Nov. 18 in Las Vegas. He will do what he has always done. The old warrior will fight until he can fight no more.

Bert Randolph Sugar, called "Boxing's Foremost Historian", is the author of "Boxing's Greatest Fighters," Published by The Lyons Press and available at Border's, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com