BraggingRightsCorner.com - A few thoughts on Morales-Pacquiao do over... by George Elsasser

For one thing, this coming Saturday’s Morales-Pacquiao WBC Super Featherweight eliminator do over should not be a PPV happening - last outing Morales is humiliated by Zahir Raheem, and Pacquiao struggled before stopping veteran war horse Hector Velasquez in stanza six.

Pac-Man is pretty much at his best when being catapulted from the corner at the start of each stanza and letting the whistling left hand fly - has always worked that way - and we all know the ol’ saying about not teaching old dogs new tricks.

So Freddie Roach sees his charge busted up in the first Morales outing, plus the Barrera, Marquez wars, and feels a change was in order - problem is Pacquiao is more banzai than ballet - and trust me, it ain’t gonna work.

Major problem in this one, and reason it should be regular HBO is two-fold - only chance for Morales to show he’s not a spent bullet, and he sure looked it in Raheem disaster, is to have the other guy in his face, unlike the quick stepping Raheem was.

If Roach has brainwashed the power punching Filipino southpaw to go the stick, move, counter route that he tried early on with Velasquez while displaying two left feet, and tossed awkward looking punches off both of them, we got a circus to look ahead to.

Further, really matters not who wins this one anyway - this WBC "eliminator" is pretty much a laugher in its own right, Barrera the champ, followed by Pacquiao placing second and Morales showing in three - the rest are collection of no-names that have simply paid the association dues.

Take it further, and we have a much more interesting tester for the Pac- Man, as in Vincente Mosquera who tops the WBA charts with Manny rated numero uno challenger - and/or how about a Pacquiao - Barrios (WBO champ) that looks like a dandy - and Pac-Man is number one on its charts.

As for Barrera who has the WBC & IBF titles, a unifier there as well would make for interest - we’ve already seen him enough with Morales as dance partner, and has tried unsuccessfully to get a return with the one-armed bandito Filipino to no avail - could always put that one on the back burner for future consideration.

Back to the upcoming Morales-Pacquiao affair it could be another in your face brawl - Erik 'wuz eI terrible' is now at age 29, young enough for sure but has already logged 51 kept appointments with 48 wins, 3 losses and 34 KO’s - still, the Raheem loss lingers in how it played out.

Pacquiao is younger at age 27 and is at 40 wins and 3 losses, 2 draws and 32 wins via KO - I say after 45 outings it’s a matter of what you’ve seen is what you get - and on that note we’ve seen this act before.

Feelings here is both Erik & Manny should pass on one another and play the proverbial field - with Barrera waiting in the wings for a survivor.

GEL -

1-18-2006