greatest performance of all time? How does this look now? Manny is a great fighter. No doubt about that. But Morales bullied him. Bloodied him, and took his best shots through an entire fight. In the 12th, he even switched to southpaw and exchanged with him. I think that this performance alone confirms Erik as better than Barrera.
If we forget the past and the future, yeah. It was a close fight and Manny's 1st fight at 130. Getting beaten senseless in the rematches and losing to Barrera don't get him higher than Barrera.
Morales is a great fighter who had better skills than most, but the dude loved to fight too much. He would give up all of his advantages just to war with you. But when he boxed he was great. A case can be made for him beating Barrera twice and he dominated Pacquiao in that first match. Cupey
Getting beaten senseless? Morales was winning the 2nd fight easier than the first, until his legs were gone and never came back.:shit: In the 3rd fight he simply decided to trade with Reyes gloves, because he knew he had no legs anymore. Which was apparent when he struggled to walk into the ring in a straight line against David Diaz.
Lies. The first fight was 7-5 decision for Morales. In the second he had some good rounds early but Pacman was hurting him all the time and took Morales' legs away with punches.
I don't care how the judges scored the first fight, Morales beat the crap out of him--it wasn't even a contest. Cupey
Yes it was, even Morales got rocked at the end. And Terrible, being close on cards doesn't mean he wasn't beaten senseless, he was.
it was a great fight marred by a bad cut suffered by a headbutt that clearly affected pacquiao and the much heavier winning gloves. immediately after pac offered no excuses and simply said he wanted a rematch with different gloves. he then proceeded to KO morales twice in a row pac > morales > barrera
Pac became a better fighter than he was in the first Morales fight and has continued to become a better boxer. I don't think you can compare the pac the lost the fight to morales to what he is now.
I think there is no way you can honestly look at Manny's career and not look back and kind of raise your eyebrows at the first Morales fight. Every boxing fan to some extent does the "rationalization" thing, trying to explain and justify why something that doesn't seem right happened. After all, who wants to argue that somehow Morales is a better fighter than Manny is? That is a tough case to present. So no matter how you choose to view it, or explain it, Morales deserves insane credit for beating Manny in fight #1. Even if it doesn't "prove" anything necessarily, it does at least make you think about how things would have turned out if Morales & Pac were in their primes jointly. I think it is not unreasonable at all to say Morales may have won all 3 fights. Just think about it, when someone retires has perhaps the biggest impact of all on how their career is judged all-time. Now most people probably say Pac is better than Morales all-time, but if Erik retires right after the first Pac fight... it all looks different. Props to Morales, he was one tough SOB.
The first fight with Morales was Erik's final great fight. Even though he whupped Manny, he also took some outrages punches. He wanted to trade with manny. After that fight, Morales was done. A prime morales would beat a prime manny. Just like a prime marquez would. That doesnt take anything away from Manny. Manny is fucking AMAZING. I am so proud to see how he has grown. The sky is the limit for this kid. He arguably has the potential to be considered an a top 5 All time Great. But of course he would have to Whup Hatton, Floyd, Diaz, Campbell, Casamayor, And of course Marquez. And you know what. I think he can do it.
Yeah, but then the same can be said of Morales. He went into that first fight after a loss, and the Pacquiao win remains the only win in the last 6 fights of his career. Granted two of the losses were to Pacquiao, but Morales showed he could still compete with him in the rematch, one in which he entered after perhaps the worst showing of his career - at least up until that point - against Raheem.
Agree. The headbutt cut was a clear factor that blood affected his vision and derailed any fight plan he had. The rematches proved this.
I third that. But there are alot more Morales nutters in here than Barrera, facts are facts though.....Barrera is Morales' daddy especially when you whip your son to where he has to go to another room to get the tears out.
His first fight at 130. Also Pacquiao had plenty of outside the ring distractions, the least of which involved his promotional contract with Murad Muhammad.