Tim Bradley vs. Jessie Vargas: Will Erik Morales be a key factor?

By Boxing News - 06/26/2015 - Comments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHDgtIOSDE8&feature=youtu.be

By Gerardo Granados: This Saturday 26th at the Stub Hub Center, California, USA, former two division title holder Tim Bradley (31-1-1, 12 KOs) will fight at the welterweight limit against WBA light welterweight belt holder Jessie Vargas (26-0, 9 KOs), in a fight that will decide who moves on to better fights and purses and who stays behind trying to rebuild his once promising boxing career. But is the addition of Erik Morales as trainer for Vargas a key factor to decide the outcome of a fight that promises a war?

Erik Morales had a great ring IQ and when you hear him analyze fights you can tell he really can find and notices the virtues and flaws on a fighter. He is a novice trainer but he comes from a family with large boxing tradition and his boxing career speaks for itself of the quality of boxer he was.

One thing is that Morales will be able to come out with a good game plan to defeat Bradley and other thing is that Vargas will be able to execute it. It will be interesting to see if Erik is able to get notorious changes on Jessie in such short time but for sure until his next fight we´ll be able to notice significant changes on Vargas.

Bradley is a smart boxer with a high tendency to brawl; if he stays focus on boxing he could try to outsmart Vargas. Tim better use angles, his speed and mobility to frustrate a taller opponent and also must impose the pace and distance of the fight.

Vargas could as well take advantage of his height and reach and set the distance with a crisp jab, moving in circles, using constant head movement and throwing 3-4 punch combinations and better try to outwork and out-punch Bradley.

I don’t expect a knockout win for any of them because both have solid chins and also none have great punching power but I do expect a good clean fight with a lot of action thru the twelve rounds. I am betting on the younger lion to win a close and competitive Split Decision, the underdog seems to me to be on the raise while Bradley might have already peaked a couple of years ago.

This will be the first major fight for Morales as a trainer, but will he be able to make major changes on Vargas and become a key factor for his victory? I think it is always great for a fighter to have good advice on his corner when needed and perhaps Roy Jones Jr was not the ideal trainer for Vargas due his natural physical abilities but Morales might fit better to improve Jessie.

Perhaps I will lose my bet, maybe I will be able to win a few notes on this one; but what intrigues me the most is to find out if Morales will be a key factor in Vargas future success. But what about the reader, do you think Vargas will improve under Morales training?



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