Sunday, October 22, 2006
We will win: Morales Sr.
ERIK Morales’ father and trainer, Jose, is confident his son will win his third fight against Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao on Nov. 19 (RP time) in Las Vegas.
“We are definitely going to win—maybe even by knockout,” Jose Morales said in fightnews.com’s report of a press conference in Mexico City.
Morales, who packs a 48-4 record with 34 KOs and is a three-time world champion, has hired his father as his trainer for this fight.
On weight
During the press conference, Morales, who experts estimated to have weighed almost 180 pounds in a June press conference with Pacquiao, tipped the scale at 142 pounds, just 12 pounds over the 130 limit.
“Not only I am on weight, but I feel stronger than ever,” said Erik, who is hoping to avenge his 10th round TKO loss to Pacquiao last March, the first KO loss of his career.
Morales kicked off his training last June together with a team of specialists who helped him reduce weight. If Morales, who claimed the effort to lose weight was the biggest factor in his loss to Pacquiao in their second fight, shows over the super featherweight limit, he will have to shell out $500,000 per pound.
Meanwhile, Pacquiao’s camp is also confident that they will still end up as the winners in the rubbermatch.
Prediction
“He’ll (Pacquiao) break him down and knock him out,” said Freddie Roach, who earlier predicted a seventh round KO win for Pacquiao.
On the other hand, all the exchange of words between the two camps are helping hype-up the fight, which has already sold out 10,000 tickets.
“Ticket sales are phenomenal,” said Top Rank’s CEO, Bob Arum, the promoter of the fight. (ESL with RCM)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (October 22, 2006 issue)
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