Make no mistake about it.  A battle in boxing does not actually start in round 1.  It starts when the boxers close all doors, windows and other openings for purposes of training.  The training defines the outcome of a fight.

For Erik “El Terrible” Morales, the battle begins when he goes up in the mountains of Los Angeles to start his weight reduction program, a program so crucial that if done improperly will result to a sorry loss in the end.  That was his undoing in his second encounter with the Pacman and he’s not a fool to repeat a previous mistake.

It is, then, his foremost concern at the moment to bring his weight to the level suited for what could be the singular bout that Erik Morales could not forget.  He will come to the fight venue a different man than he was last January 21, 2006.  He is coming off a two-fight losing streak, an uncommon scenario for the kind of fighter that he is.  He knows that the sunset of his sterling career is near and he doesn’t like any cloud of failure block the bright rays of his boxing sun. For Erik Morales, the third battle with Pacquiao has already begun.

In the case of Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao, the battle with Erik Morales actually began when he fought Oscar Larios.  It is no secret that he fought Larios as a tune-up fight for the third and probably his last skirmish against “El Terrible”.

His six-week training going to the duel with Larios was enough for Chololo’s caliber but to say that the same kind of training is enough against Morales is to commit a grave training mistake.  Morales is several notch better than Larios and Pacquiao knows that and with such an awareness, he will not train for only six weeks.  His preparation was not excellent in his first fight against Morales and he paid dearly for that lack of excellence.  His training in the second fight was superb and he finished Morales off in an equally superb fashion.  Pacquiao knows the kind of training he has to do for the Morales fight and when he starts the training, that’s the beginning of the battle.