Hey fight fans, and welcome to this the 1st installment of The Scorecard. We will be taking a look ahead to an exciting week of Boxing and some rather unfortunate news.
Unless you have not been keeping up with the news, Diego “Chico” Corrales has pulled out of his third match with Jose Luis Castillo, citing a rib injury. This fight was scheduled for February 4th, for Chico’s Lightweight Championship. For those not familiar with these names, I personally recommend finding a copy of Castillo Corrales 1, widely recognized as the best fight in the last decade. This fight was also declared hands down Fight of the Year in 2005. The runner up, on most writers list was Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao vs. Erik “El Terrible” Morales, a thriller that was an early favorite for Fight of the Year before the Rocky-esque performance of the Lightweights.
Bringing us to this weekend’s mega fight rematch, between Pacquiao and Morales. This is a PPV event covered by HBO, and pits the hard hitting Philippines native Pac-Man 40-3-2 with 32 KOs, and tenacious Mexican Morales 48-3 with 34 KOs. Both fighters are extremely popular with their nations; Pacquiao even has done some action movies in his native country. Though Morales scored a UD victory over Pacquiao in their last fight, he has lost 2 of his last 3 fights. That loss for Pac-Man was his first loss since 1999. In their last outings on the same card this past Fall, Pac-Man scored a TKO win in the 6 th over Hector Velazquez, but in a shocking turn of events, Morales lost a UD to Zahir Raheem. Raheem a little known fighter from Philadelphia, and former Olympian, was a heavy underdog but showed the World he was for real, with a dominating victory.
When a PPV is approaching, I will try to give you my honest opinion on whether or not you should shell out your hard earned dollars on it, and what to expect. In the case of Pacquiao vs. Morales II, this is a must for hardcore fight nuts to casual fans. Both of these top tier fighters have power in both hands, with high KO ratios, though the first fight went the distance, I am predicting a KO for this fight. The odds on this fight are about even now, expect to see Morales as a slight favorite come fight time. Morales has participated in the 2000 and 2004 Fight of the Year, both wars against fellow Mexican Marco Antonio Barrera. Expect a thriller this weekend. This fight is a WBC Super Featherweight Title Eliminator.
Rokk’s Prediction: Pacquiao KO 10th
This Friday we welcome back ESPN2 Friday Night Fights, with special guest, the aforementioned Zahir Raheem. The Main Event of the evening will be Pereira vs. Rakkiatgym for the IBF Featherweight Title.
Also in an event that will not be televised Olympic Silver Medalist Ricardo “Rocky” Juarez on a comeback trail will fight Backlin Medrano. Though a relative unknown Medrano has 8 KOs in his 9 wins, whether he can pop or this high ratio is just a showing of his lack of opponent quality is to be seen.
