By Allan Fox: 35-year-old WBC light welterweight champion Erik Morales (52-7, 36 KO’s) says he has a new enthusiasm for boxing that was missing years ago when suffered four consecutive losses from 2005 to 2007. Morales took three years off in retiring from the sport until making a comeback in 2010. Morales has now won four of five bouts during his comeback but he’s not looked anywhere near as good as he was, even during his four-fight losing streak. This bigger version of Morales is slower, heavier and not as big a puncher.

Morales makes his first defense of his WBC title on Saturday night against unbeaten Danny Garcia (22-0, 14 KO’s) at the Reliant Arena in Houston, Texas. If Morales looks anything like he did in struggling to beat 22-year-old fringe contender Pablo Cesar Cano last September for the vacant WBC 140 pound title, then we could see Morales get badly beaten by Garcia because he’s rated as a lot better fighter than Cano.

Morales said to supersport.com “I feel rejuvenated. I needed to take some time off to decide what I wanted to do. Now I know I’m 100 percent committed to boxing.”

Garcia has the speed, power and youth to give Morales a lot of problems in this fight and likely stop him inside the distance at some point. Garcia has the speed to give Morales fits and with his power and youth, he’s probably a step too far for Morales. This isn’t a good match-up for Morales, who would have been better off vacating the title and moving back down in weight to lightweight or super featherweight if he could make the fight. He likely can’t make the weight at this point in his career and that’s probably why he’s at 140. The WBC made it easy for Morales to pick up a title when Cano was found to replace ill Lucas Matthysse last September. Morales would have struggled against a fighter like Matthysse.