Just Right
By Cyril Regalado

Holding the TV audience hostage
(The Pacquiao-Morales post mortem)

It was a fight that the entire country awaited with bated breath. The national pride was at stake and Manny Pacquiao's ring exploits were the only some of the very few achievements that helped boost the Pinoy self esteem. The country needed a champion and a symbol that would nourish its confidence. No Filipino enthusiast wanted to miss this mega buck fight.

It was against this backdrop that the Pacquiao-Morales fight took center stage last Sunday with an estimated 30 Million Filipinos glued to their television sets. But what started as an exciting weekend, turned out to be a sleeper of a long tedious stakeout for tidbits of the Las Vegas coverage, in between 10 minute advertisements that dragged a supposedly LIVE TV coverage into a 7 hour broadcast marathon.

The TV program started promptly at 10 A.M. Preliminary fights and commentaries were aired for more than three hours. Then, just as the main event was about to start on TV, news of the results began to trickle in from the radio and from text messages. But hold it. There were avid fans who blacked out all other news sources just to be able to learn the results from the TV program they were watching. They were already impatient and thinking of their other appointments, like the postponed Sunday Mass. By the time the TV announcer heralded the start of the Pacquaio-Morales fight, he delivered a monologue about, how Pacquiao, win or lose, will still be champion in every Filipino's heart. It was a dead giveaway of the Pacquiao loss and the final deathblow to the otherwise “suspenseful fight” boxing fans wanted to be treated to. Before the fight was aired, everybody knew that Pacquiao had lost! In the process, the TV promoters also lost their audience, or worse, gained their ire.

In 1988, the Tyson vs. Spinks fight was also covered “live” on television. Spinks was knocked out in 1 minute, 31 seconds of the first round, but the coverage took 5 hours. Because of a number of complaints against the exploitative use of “crowd drawing” fights to air a cloying barrage of ads, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) tried to regulate the airing of commercials in situations such as this. But TV promoters can evade this with impunity by just paying the fine. Their huge revenues can take care of that. This can only happen in the Philippines . Other countries air important sports events without interruption through creative delivery of advertising messages. In some ASEAN countries, advertisements do not go beyond 1 minute per break. This gives TV viewers tolerable, and still enjoyable, two hour boxing extravaganzas.

Pacquiao lost to a better boxer that night. Morales was a savvy ringmaster who knew how to neutralize Pacquiao's blazing fists. Some analysts say that Pacquiao lost his power in going up to a bigger weight class. Pacquiao started as a straw weight (106 pounds) in 1995. Since then, he climbed up through 6 major weight divisions to fight Morales at 130 pounds, the Super Featherweight. A number of great champions lost their punching power as they moved to heavier divisions. Flash Elorde, Roberto Duran, Tito Trinidad, Oscar De la Hoya to name a few. They say that a smaller good guy will always lose to a bigger good guy. And that is what happened. Pacquiao didn't seem to have that wallop in his punches. But then again, Morales got groggy at times when he got hit. It is too early to say if Pacquio can sustain his power at Super Featherweight especially if we gauge it with his fight against Morales who is known to have a granite chin and who has never been knocked out in his professional career. Also, Pacquiao never landed a square, picture perfect left on Morales.

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 throws 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.

Can Pacquiao, beat Morales in a rematch? Yes, he can. Despite his weaknesses, the fight was razor thin close. In fact, Boxing Central called the fight a draw. With Roach as trainer, Pacquiao can minimize his weaknesses and further develop as a fighter. At 26 years old, Pacquiao can still blossom into a well rounded fighter on the road to greater fame for himself and the country.