Just Right
Pacquiao in the 8th
Sports analysts generally avoid making specific predictions of the outcome of a boxing match. But if they do, they often hedge and qualify their statements with provisos and assumptions. Thus, a noted manager said a few days ago that, if Pacquiao lands, Morales will fall. Quite a few venture to add that if the fight goes the distance, it will go to Morales; otherwise, a knockout will be Pacquiao's winning route. Hmm. Safe, and benign.
But I'm a die hard Pacquiao fan, first and foremost, and my sentiments got the better of me. So, I will be stating this with a sponsor's partiality. It will be Pacquiao by knockout in the eighth (8th) round. Come to think of it, this is not just pure guesswork. Reports that filtered out of Pacquiao's training camp and even the way Pacquiao handled himself during his last 3 fights reveal a blueprint that just might prove to be the antidote against Morales' boxing acumen. Pacquiao, under the tutelage of Freddie Roach, has been trying to develop new skills and add dimensions to his style that I think is nearing its competence. Boxing skills should be second nature to a fighter and should be utilized instinctively. When Pacquiao started with Roach he displayed rudiments of a right hook that was not yet quite effective because he had to consciously prompt himself to deliver it.
Juan Manuel Marquez exposed Pacquiao's weaknesses when they fought to a draw. It is conceded that Pacquiao was a one - dimensional fighter. He plods forward and throws his left straight. Boxers find this easy to defend against except that Pacquiao delivers the punch with blinding speed. Some of his opponents confessed they never saw what was coming. A writer described Pacquiao as a boxer with a guided missile in his left fist. However, his fight with Juan Manual Marquez showed that he is so predictable and his style was tailored for a skilled counter puncher like Marquez and, of course, Morales. All that these Mexicans had to do was to slip Pacquiao's left straight, keep their head low and counter with hooks to the body, and the head. Here is my post mortem for the first Pacquiao-Morales encounter last March 2005.
"Pacquiao brought with him some weaknesses that Morales exploited. First, Pacquiao was a one handed fighter who mainly used his left. While trainer, Freddie Roach tried to correct this, Pacquiao still has not fully developed the necessary skill to utilize the strength of his right hand. In time though, Pacquiao will be able to master this. In fact, his right hand is beginning to develop as shown by his stoppage of Fahsan 3 K Battery and the right hooks that he landed on Morales in the final rounds of the fight. Second, Pacquiao drops his left hand when he jabs with his right, making him vulnerable to a Morales right straight. Third, Pacquiao has no lateral movement and does not know how to slip punches. His method of avoiding a punch is to back pedal or cover his face. Fourth, Pacquiao has less in-fighting skills. That is why Morales (and even Marquez in their last fight) easily ducked his long range punches, moved in at close quarters and delivered some telling counter hooks and upper-cuts. For the same reason, Pacquiao had to stand at mid range so he can unload his left or his newly learned right jab or hook. Unfortunately, Morales had a longer reach and was able to throw a more effective left jab and right straight. The clincher is that Morales was able to withstand Pacquiao's greatest weapon. His knockout punch.
Right after Pacquiao demolished Marco Antonio Barrera, the Mexicans studied Pacquiao's style and came up with a strategy to avoid the dreaded left straight. Marquez showed the best counter to Pacquiao's offense. Morales developed this further by an "all-angles" counter-offensive and had Pacquiao backing up and pinned to the ropes on several occasions.
So what will happen this Sunday? I think that the secret weapon Freddie Roach has been talking about has become an open secret and is quite easy to decipher. It is common knowledge that Pacquiao has since been working on his "lazy" right hand. And, despite his reputation for speed, he has not carried this asset down to his feet. The Pacquiao camp also announced that they learned a lot from the Raheem-Morales fight. Certainly then, Pacquiao has been re-engineered to box with foot speed and to sidestep Morales in order to have more angles from which to deliver punches, and, more importantly, in order to avoid the Morales counter punches. I've seen the Pacquiao transformation when he fought Velasquez. He threw an uppercut and did a sidestep that brought him behind Velasquez before the Mexican could regain his focus.
This I believe will be the main point of the Pacquiao strategy.