5 favourite fights

50%?...Woah there partner back it up a bit. Morales was not prime, at the very least he wasnt at his prime weight but he still had enough left in the tank to be considered elite.

Its kind of hard to tell with a basic stylist like Erik (basic in a good way, he did the fundamental things pretty damn well)..they dont use their reflexes or speed so much, so it can be hard to gauge when they are on their way out. Especially with a guy like Erik whose defence was a tad leaky at the best of times.

I tend to think he had to rely less on his physical ability and more on his boxing ability as he went up in weight and he was facing naturally bigger dudes. Thats why Raheem as a choice of opponent was a head scratcher in the realm of Vilomer Fernandez for Alexis Arguello.

 

...Elite fighters don't get thoroughly outboxed by Zahir Raheem. Erik was having trouble making Super Feather, the Lightweight limit should have been a benefit. He didn't have it anymore...nothing left to prove. Ironically, this is a logic that bodes well with the classic when discussin Duran but not Morales. ...Wow, I'm shocked.

 

I read different in his interviews post the Raheem fight...he agreed maybe lightweight was to far for him to move up..Said he felt a bit slower.

I thought him performance in the second fight was fairly decent...Not a 50% effort.

Maybe Ive drunk to much but Im not really following the Duran comparison...So just so we are clear I feel Erik was past prime, not totally past it but definitely faded around that time..He took on a tune up against a cagey opponent at a new weight where he was giving his usual advantages away and it backfired badly.
But then put on a pretty good losing performance at a weight he was more proven at, against a superior opponant.

In conclusion...
*Morales past prime but still capable for his clear win over Manny in the first,
* Probably came in a bit underdone against a bigger and difficult fighter in Raheem got schooled..
*Came back with some fire in the belly at a weight he was better at and gave a decent showing getting eventually smashed by Manny in the rematch
*Completely done for the third match.

The only fight I feel he had diminished to near 50% capacity was the rubber match with Pac. I dont feel Erik was that good that at 50% he could go 10 rounds with a near peak Manny, whilst giving as good as he got for the first 5 or so rounds.

**** its all semantics anyway...Ill just agree with you Addie ya *****.

 

....****, I was drunk last night.

 

I'm also prone to drunken vitriol on this forum.

Still, it doesn't completely exonerate you from talking some BS...

Cheers for that. I just boxrec'd it, and it turns out you're right.

When has anyone on this forum ever said Raheem beat a prime Erik? I know I sure as **** never have.

Read what back? Where has anyone said Raheem beat a prime Morales???

You sure must have been to think I believe that Pac beat a prime Morales. Morales's prime was at 122, extended into 126, it was never at 130 and certainly not 135.

We agree on this one at least. Fights the best comp available, exciting fights, dynamic abilities. A God-send in this age of duckers and career-strategists.

He did indeed. MAB was a superb fighter, but he underestimated Pac a little, he wasn't ready for the firestorm. Pac's speed made him a bad stylistic match for Marco too.

He DID though.

Shot fighters don't fight like demons against top fighters for 10 horrendously violent rounds.

The Morales of the second fight beats most other superfeathers of this era. The proof is in his performance. If he was shot or close to it, Pacquiao would have chopped him down early. But he couldn't. It was a firefight.

"Yawn".

The Raheem result happened, and I have never tried to deny it.

Had the fight been at superfeather, and had Morales been dominated, it may have had some significance to the Pacquiao fight.

But this was not the case.

The situation was the same as Duran vs Benitez and Duran vs Laing. It's a simple formula:

Past-Prime + Not Comfortable At The Weight + Bad Stylistic Match-Up = Outpointed.


Morales and Duran were past-prime.
Not shot, not by a long way, because Duran roared back to produce great performances afterwards, and Morales returned to form by fighting like his old self in the second Pacquiao fight. But both mens' absolute peaks were years earlier.

Morales and Duran were not comfortable at the weight.
Morales's peak was at 122. Duran's peak was at 135. Morales fought well at 130, but was never as good there as he was at 122. By 135, he was out of his comfort zone. Duran was a better weight-jumper, he fought well at 154 and 160, but he also had his bad performances there, compared to his displays at 135 and 147, he was out of his comfort zone at 154 and 160.

Morales and Duran faced bad stylistic match-ups in their respective opponents.
Raheem's box-and-move style was not a good style for Morales. Although Morales would still have overcome this stylistic disadvantage at his best weights, it was always a style he would find trickier than men who would come at him. You can say the exact same thing about Duran, with reference to Benitez and Laing (of course, Benitez is on a completely different level to Laing, but the principle is the same, I strongly believe peak Duran overcomes the stylistic issue and beats Benitez 140-147).


Bearing these three factors in mind, it is not surprising or especially meaningful that Morales and Duran lost competitive decisions in these fights. These losses were not proof that either man was shot, or that a subsequent win over them would have absolutely zero value whatsoever. When Duran fought guys with styles more conducive to his own (ie Moore and Barkley), he performed like himself again and won. When Morales returned to a suitable weight and fought someone with a more conducive style, he fought like himself again. Unfortunately for him, he met a far more talented and determined fighter than a Moore or a Barkley.

:-( This really is a dreadful comment that I sincerely hope was alcohol-induced:


Morales fights Pac for 12 rounds and wins by 2 points = 100%

Morales fights Pac for 10 rounds and is 2 points down = 50%


A nonsense comment, especially when your previous thoughts on Roy Jones are taken into account.

After Jones's pointless sparring match embarrassment of a shot (and never much good anyway) Jeff Lacy, we argued about him. I said he was shot, you said he still had something left.

This is after...

- Jones was KO'd by Tarver
- Then dominated over 12 by Tarver
- Then knocked cold by Johnson
- Then humiliated by Calzaghe

...over a period of 5 whole years, and these fights were all at a weight where Jones had proven his greatness, and against fighters that Jones would have destroyed in his prime.

Yet, in your eyes, Jones was not shot when you thought he was going to be facing Hopkins (before Danny Green reasserted sanity on the world).


By comparison, you imply that Morales was shot by stating a win over him has zero merit, when his situation was...

- Morales was outpointed by Raheem

...over a period of 1 single year, at a weight Morales never fought at before and never had any success at in his career, and against a fighter who was always a bad stylistic match for him (especially given Raheem's size advantages).


How can a Hopkins-Jones fight have been legitimate in your eyes before Green got to Jones, but a Pacquiao-Morales rematch had no value because of one outpointing of Erik at a bad weight against a bad match-up???

Yes. This is more important than trying to prove Morales was a shell because he was outpointed by a slippery opponent at a bad weight for him. Pacquiao has been improving steadily for years now. Watch the first two EM-Pac fights, and see the difference in Pac's approach.

I am. A prime Morales was 122/126. I think prime Morales beats the 122/126 Pacquiao. I think prime Pacquiao is 135-147, and a hypothetical h2h between he and Morales couldn't happen in that weight range because Erik never fought above 135, and he was pretty poor at 135 vs Raheem and Diaz.

I agree with you... but who said that?

Yeah, I am braced waiting to get "owned" by Bill B

History will get this right for sure. Morales was a true warrior and a magnificent fighter. Couldn't agree more.

You see, this is the kind of comment that I just do not understand at all. Whenever this kind of comment is made I just have to shake my head ruefully- :-(. No offence dude, but it's a very silly comment to make.

A boxer is a human being, made of flesh and bone. A punch is a physical thing, and elicits a physiological reaction. A boxer does not get to choose whether he gets stopped or knocked out, his body either reacts by being KO'd, or it doesn't. Of course the mental side of things is not without importance, but this is often highly, highly overstated by boxing fans.

So Morales would "never have succumbed" because of his "indomitable will", so even if Wilfredo Gomez exploded a barrage of clean hooks to his chin, his own will would have stopped his body reacting by falling into unconsciousness? OK.

Let me ask you, did Morales have more indomitable will than Jose Luis Ramirez? Ramirez had 111 fights. Chavez couldn't KO or TKO him in 1988, Arguello couldn't stop him in 1980, Edwin Rosario couldn't stop him in 1983. He had 111 fights, and was stopped only once. Did Morales prove to have more indomitable will than than that??? Yet the one time he was stopped, despite proving to have a granite ATG chin and granite ATG mentality beyond a shadow of a doubt, he was blitzed in 2 by a past-prime Ruben Olivares. Why? Because the right punches at the right time ruled his will irrelevant, his body's physiological reaction to those punches was outwith his control.

I could bore you with a similar example on George Chuvalo, one of the first names off everyone's lips when it comes to ATG chin and toughness, who was stopped only twice in 93 heavyweight fights where he fought everyone in the hw Golden Era, and one of those was by Joe Frazier, who was more of a Pacquiao-level puncher (strong puncher) than an Olivares-level puncher (horrible ATG KO puncher).

This "he would never have given in" nonsense is puerile. If guys like Ramirez and Chuvalo can "give in" when they are hit by the right punches at the right time, so can ****ing Erik Morales.

True. He proved it in the ring, and in the rest of his career.

A year after the best win of Erik's career, at a weight Erik had had nothing but success and strong performances at.

 

Yes, because I bet you were saying this at the time. Morales was a very live dog with the bookmakers in that fight, both they and the majority of fans recognized that Morales was up too high vs Raheem, plus Raheem was a slippery **** and Morales probably struggled for motivation considering he was used to superfights with guys like Barrera and Pac.

You're acting as if Zahir Raheem was like a ****ing Matthew Hatton or something. He was never close to Morales's level, but he took Freitas to an SD, he was a good top 10 lightweight fighter at his best.

Would a 126lbs Morales have jumped 2 divisions and 'steamrolled' a slippery box-and-mover at 135lbs? I'm not so sure. Morales would never have been very effective at 135 no matter when he fought there. It was simply above his weight ceiling.

Except you weren't.

Elite fighters don't get thoroughly outboxed by Kirkland Laing.

Unless...

Past-Prime + Not Comfortable At The Weight + Bad Stylistic Match-Up = Outpointed.

That's BS. The only way Morales could have been struggling to make superfeather was if he was not in top condition, because he just did not have the frame to be a good lightweight. He didn't look particularly powerful at 130 as it was, he had clearly lost some of the snap in his punches as he moved up from 122.

He fought like a lion and was beaten by the better man on the night. He got credit for his win when Pac fought back like a demon, Pac deserves credit for his win when Morales fought back like a demon.

Nothing left to prove, but he still had plenty of desire and ability anyway. As I said, the Morales of the second fight torches most other superfeathers of this era.

Yawn.

(this is becoming my version of Bill's 'Botswana')

:good

 

Footnote:

If Pac's wins over Morales have no value because Morales never performed to the same standard again afterwards, then by the same logic what does that say about Marco Antonio Barrera's win over Naseem Hamed???

Hamed's next performance after MAB was the worst of his career, a dull toothless points win over Manuel Calvo (33-4-1).

Was Bungu the last great performance of Naz? Did Augie Sanchez show that Naz was 50% of what he was by giving him all sorts of trouble before the Prince's punch power bailed him out? Did Barrera come along at just the right time to beat this declined version of Naz????????

Consistency please.

 

Hamed was coming off a loss going into the Barrera fight? :huh

Hamed was above his best weight for the Barrera fight? :huh

Hamed was bounced around by counters, something he was always prone to being subjected too, Morales never ever showed an ounce of quit in him before Pacquiao II. He had been in much more brutal wars than that one, they finally caught up to him. He gave 100% in a 60% body. Coming off a loss to Raheem couldn't have been much of a confidence builder either.

The Morales win has a little bit of a value...but not much more than that.

 

Have you seen the Augie Sanchez fight? Naz was awful. His power bailed him out. If Morales being outpointed by a bad stylistic match at a bad weight for him was indicative of Morales being finished, then Hamed being in all sorts of trouble against a sub-standard opponent at his prime weight is surely indicative of Hamed being finished, if we are using the same logic for both men. Morales would have crushed a Raheem standard fighter at his peak, some would say that Hamed would have dealt with Sanchez far more impressively around 1995-97.

This strengthens my point mate, not yours!

Hamed was at his best weight for the fights with Sanchez, Barrera and Calvo. And some would say these displays were noticeably inferior to his best performances at the same weight around 95-97ish. He doesn't even have weight to excuse his decline, playing devil's advocate.

By your statement, you imply that you agree with me that weight was a big factor in the Morales-Raheem fight. Morales has this reason for his poorer performance vs Raheem, whereas Naz does not.

(please note that I am playing devil's advocate to make a point about your inconsistency between those you like and those you don't, I personally do not buy the post-Ingle Hamed Decline Theory, but I am aware that it is a prevalent attitude among Hamed fans)

And Morales was not prone to finding box-and-movers tricky to deal with?

:huh Have you seen the fight mate?? Morales didn't quit in the second fight. He was stopped. The referee rescued him because he was taking a shellacking. He quit in the 3rd fight, when he was still suffering the mental and physical after-effects of having been broken and stopped for the first time in his life.

atsch When was Morales ever knocked on his back twice and taking one-sided punishment till the referee had to save him???

Never before.

Two men beating on each other but neither man going down may be what is conventionally called a 'war', but very very obviously this is nowhere near as brutal and damaging as being floored twice and being unable to retaliate under a hailstorm of punches.

What was more 'brutal', Barrera having a 50-50 'war' with Morales, or Barrera being brutalized into his first stoppage defeat by Junior Jones? Of course he was in more distress vs Jones. This is just so obvious.

You and your statistics. It was 50% overall yesterday, now it's 100% but really 60%. Did you know that Vic Reeves said that 88.2% of statistics were made up? I say that 98.1% of them are so inaccurate that it's 100% pointless to even cite them.

Do you seriously think this was really a factor even worth bringing up???

Addie mate, do you genuinely not see how ridiculous it is to say in one post that Morales was a true warrior with ATG indomitable will which means he could not be stopped by any fighter, and then in the next post say he must have had dented confidence after one competitive points loss at a new weight class?

FFS, either the guy is mentally strong, or he isn't. Either the guy has the will to walk through Wilfredo Gomez's artillery, or he is someone so devoid of experience and confidence that he is left a blubbering wreck after a points loss.

Which is it???

It has the same value as every other great win over a past-prime HOF fighter who was still capable of fighting at a high level. There are countless good wins which fit that description. I can list some if you disagree.

 

Very true.... you wont convince Popkins about this tho, Ive been over this exact thing with him numerous times.....

He is convinced that Raheem beat Morales because 135 was too high & because he is a slick boxer..... I say that EM-MP 1 was Erik`s last elite performance & he was done as a top level fighter after that, the 135 lbs actually benefited Morales vs Raheem since he had to strip naked to make the 1st MP fight.

Roach wouldnt allow Morales to come in at 132 for the rematch (suprise suprise) but at best Morales would have lost a wide UD as he was - as I already said - done as an elite fighter (which MP certainly was & is) anyway.

Popkins thinks Morales was the exact same as in fight one, this is mind blowing, his timing was away to ****, he fell short with punches that used to be his bread & butter, the only time he hit MP was when he attacked & forced himself onto MP, taking harder shots in the process.... its clear as day.... his timing greatly affected his distance game which as we know is what outpointed MP in the 1st fight, just compare the timing of Erik`s jab in both fights, thats your answer & the jab was arguably the main weapon that beat MP in fight one, certainly one of the main weapons.

MP did improve in fight 2 but if you put that version in with the EM of fight 1, no **** is getting stopped, your gonna have a contraversial razor thin verdict either way similar to both MP-JMM fights.

Thats all.

 

Exactly. :good

Been really appreciating Erik more recently. He's a lot cuter than given credit for. And I do believe that two of his greatest ever performances came at 130lbs. His domination over Hernandez and of course, beating Manny Pacquiao. In fact, 126 and 130 Morales often impressed me more than Super Bantamweight Erik.

 

Very true?? How about: Not True At All???

I don't think Pacquiao beat a prime Morales, I have never ever said so, so you drama queens can chill out with your mutual-masturbatory mock disbelief.

I am willing to accept that Morales had been on a gradual decline for a while by the time of the second Pac fight, I am not saying he was in the exact same condition he was in for the first fight (I have always said that Morales's win over Pac was a better win than Pac's wins over Morales), but Addie makes out as if this was ****ing Roberto Duran vs William Joppy - was it ****.

Wins over past-prime stars in great competitive fights do have great value, of course they do. Just because someone is not at the absolute apex of their mental and physical powers does not mean they roll over and have their belly tickled. As I keep saying, Morales would have torched many other solid superfeathers that night. I don't understand how anyone can sit watching the barnburner that is round 7 of the 2nd Pac-Morales fight and think any differently.


I value Hatton's win over Tszyu. Tszyu never done anything after Hatton beat him, and he was past-prime at the time, but he still fought like a warrior and had to be beaten down by a younger, fresher, stronger opponent. Great fight, great win.

I value Barrera's win over Hamed. Hamed never done anything after Barrera beat him, and some would argue he was past-prime by then (I don't necessarily agree with that point), but he was still dangerous and competitive for the fight and had to be boxed and beaten in a concentrated performance over 12 rounds by a superior opponent.

I value Winky Wright's win over Felix Trinidad. Tito never done anything after Winky beat him, and he was both past-prime and above his best weight by then, but he was still a murderous puncher and a very dangerous fighter (as shown in his previous performance vs Mayorga) and had to be fought with intelligence and skill over 12 rounds.


I'm sure I don't need to cite more examples. History is awash with great wins which were achieved over fighters who were past-prime and didn't go on to achieve anything else in their careers. We can't just toss them in the bin like Addie has done because he has a preference for the beaten fighter. It's bull****. Morales, like Tszyu and Tito and Hamed, came to win and were dangerous opponents who forced quality performances from their conquerors. If we attribute no value to those victories, then a huge percentage of great wins are relegated to the dustbin as well. Bollocks to that lads!

I disagree. Morales was the one who chose the Reyes puncher's gloves for the second fight, it was clear he didn't want to outbox Pac, he wanted to war. This should also be clear from his approach in round 1. He isn't trying and failing to outbox Pac, he is trying to go to war with him (and doing a f*cking decent job of it in the 1st).

An important point which I dunno if you chaps are aware of is that Morales outweighed Pac on fightnight in the 1st clash, whereas Pac had 5lbs on Morales in the 2nd fight. Rather than you guys' dewy-eyed and highly convenient (and horribly tenuous and vague) theory that Morales was, for some unknown reason, "done" after the 1st Pac fight, I'd say there was far more significance to how the fight went that Morales wore Pac's puncher's gloves and tried to war with him while being outweighed.

Hmmm. Debatable. Morales is not the same type of fighter as Marquez. If Morales tried to box the way he did in the 1st fight, it could indeed be a pretty close fight, I'd still bet heavily on Pac though. If Erik tried to war with Pacquiao, he gets ****ed up again. No-one outfights Pacquiao in a firefight. Too fast, too powerful, too relentless, too resilient.

It's all very well all this "Morales would never get stopped" stuff, but every human being has the capacity to get stopped. As I pointed out earlier, guys like Ramirez and Chuvalo were stopped, and they proved their whiskers and toughness to a greater extent than Erik Morales did. The right punches at the right time from the right opponent can crumple anyone. Morales may have looked strong as an ox throughout his career, but ask yourself, when did he ever fight someone who weighed 144lbs, was in his physical prime, and was as fast, as strong and as explosive as the Pacquiao of the second fight? The answer, of course, is never. So it doesn't matter a jot that Morales looked impregnable against ****in InJin Chi and Daniel Zaragoza and the rest, that he never showed an ounce of quit against these guys does not mean a far bigger and far more powerful opponent could not have got to him.

Yes, that is all.

 

Addie? Bill? Anyone care to respond to my last couple of posts, or have I crushed the interest out of you with my incessantly dull warbling on the subject??

 

It's redundant mate.

Your argument that Morales magically became shot over night is also redundant. Mainly because you've magically dismissed the Raheem performance as being the result of 5 pounds, not to mention the wars he had with Chavez, In Jin Chi, Barrera x2, Morales I. You can't properly distinguish when Morales was at his best because, yes, he was undefeated at 122lbs, but he had sporadic performances throughout his career. He often looked great at 122lbs, and then would turn in equally great performances at 126 and 130. It was mostly dependent on how his body was at that point in time, he was a fighter who had to keep moving up at certain times to perform at optimal level.

Morales first showed signs of slowing down in the third Barrera fight. People thinking he underestimated Barrera are dead wrong, he was more motivated than ever to beat the hell out of Marco once and for all to establiish who was the better man. It was a mix of Barrera putting on an amazing performance, and Morales coming out slow from the blocks...which he wasn't accustomed to doing. He won the second half of the fight on my card, and he went into the Pacquiao fight motivated to get one over a concuqerer of Barrera's.

It wasn't an over night depletion, Raheem beat Morales because he was an aging fighter, coming off back to back wars with p4p rated opposition in fights that were fight of the year candidates. In fact, Barrera III was foty, and his fight with Pacquiao would have been had Corrales/Castillo I never happened.You can only take so many punches to the head. Morales of 2002 does not go down and does not get stopped by that assault. It's my belief, and nothing you can say can prove otherwise...or can it? Morales had took far worse punishment than that in his career, but he wasn't going to endure it at that time in his career.

Morales would never win another fight...

 

:? But that's your argument, not mine??? I'm saying Morales didn't somehow go from the best performance of his career to shot within a year. You are saying that, not me. The highly, highly convenient theory you guys propose is that a fighter you like performed brilliantly, then one year later despite taking virtually zero physical punishment in his only fight in that time, a win over him had no value because he was so, so far gone - despite him producing a similar kind of effort in the rematch. I'm sure you must objectively agree that this is very, very convenient and pretty insubstantial. Had Morales put in the effort he did in the rematch but boxed instead of brawled, it may have been a very close fight because he had success when he boxed in the middle rounds. But he chose to go to war. His tactics beat him because he was facing a 144lbs beast of an opponent, it was not some mystery disease which took him from the best performance of his life to a shell within a year.

But I can't get my head around how you don't understand this point: Morales had undoubtedly NEVER taken far worse punishment than that in his career! Of course he hadn't! He had never taken anywhere near that much punishment in one fight!! I find it utterly, utterly bizarre that you think so.

After round 8, the commentators are saying "Morales had tough fights with Barrera and - (someone else but I can't remember who it is off hand) but he has never took a beating like that in a round". The difference which the commentators are recognizing is that Morales had had two-way brutal wars before, but he had NEVER been getting beat down before - it's a very clear distinction. Morales and Chi, Morales and Chavez, Morales and Barrera - these fights were all ding-dong 50-50 battles with both men taking and giving. But at no point in these fights was Morales ever shipping punishment the way he was vs Pac. You saying Morales had been in "more brutal" fights is like saying Hatton's war of attrition with Kostya Tszyu was more punishing than him being overwhelmed and KTFO by Mayweather and Pacquiao. Yes, the Tszyu fight fits the conventional description of a "war" better than the Mayweather or Pacquiao fights, but in that fight Hatton was never pinned in a corner eating shots, he was never under intense pressure on the ropes and having to try and hold on, he was never on the canvas with his head spinning having to try and regroup mentally while the crowd went berserk. It's the same situation with Morales. Yes, he stood in the trenches with Chi and Barrera and Chavez and they were "wars", but he was never in anything like the sort of danger Pacquiao had him in. Pacquiao dominated him over a couple of rounds like he had never been dominated before in his entire career, had him backing up, shipping punishment, under intense pressure, unable to turn the tide, knocking him down to the canvas twice for the first proper KD's of his career. There is just no way on Earth that he had absorbed similarly intense and severe pain and punishment in any of the 50-50 'wars' where he didn't get knocked down or spend a round under horrible pressure eating shots.

To this I say again:

If you thought the subject was redundant already then I very much doubt you will want to pursue it any further considering the length of this reply again, but I will end my own participation on the matter with a little montage of things I have already said on this thread which I think were ignored, in the hope of being more clearly understood on the subject. Cheers: