Jose "Olivaritos" Morales, the father and long-time trainer of Mexican boxing legend Erik Morales, told the Mexican media yesterday that his son should prepare to hang up his gloves soon while his faculties are still intact.

"Erik (started boxing) at age five and is going 30 years old. The human being also gets tired. Boxing is risky and Erik has had very difficult fights. He has received blows that he did not received before," said the elder Morales, obviously pointing to the punishment his son absorbed from Manny Pacquiao last Jan. 21 in Las Vegas.

In that fight, Morales was stopped in the 10th round — the first time the 29-year-old Tijuana native suffered a stoppage in his storied career.

The senior Morales also disclosed to La Opinion that he would like to see his son to fight one or two times at the most before deciding to call it quits, insinuating that these fights must be against handpicked foes for him to close out his storied career with a bang and not against a rugged and heavy-handed rival like Pacquiao.

Incidentally, Morales’ promotional outfit Top Rank wants to stage a rubber match between the Mexican and Pacquiao sometime in September.

An official contract hasn’t been signed between the two parties although even Pacquiao’s camp has made it clear that it would give Morales the chance to exact payback in the third fight.

But Pacquiao must first hurdle past a tuneup fight sometime in June or July at the Araneta Coliseum.

Morales held titles in the super-bantamweight, featherweight and superfeatherweight divisions and could even go for a fourth world crown, the lightweight championship, prior to his retirement.