By Dan Ambrose: In a fight that was a lot tougher than expected for 34-year-old former WBC 154 pound champion Sergio Mora (28-3-2, 9 KOs), he had to battle hard to defeat ESPN regular Abie Han (23-2, 14 KOs) by a close 12 round split decision on Friday night at the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi.
It was a fight that could have literally gone either way, as many of the rounds were extremely close. Mora was exhausted in the last three rounds of the fight, and he clearly lost – or should have lost – those rounds.
Han, 30, knocked Mora down with a right to the shoulder in the 10th round. Mora only has himself to blame for getting knocked down because he was retreating at the time he got hit, and he couldn’t stay on his feet.
The judges scored the fight 114-113 and 115-112 for Mora, and 115-112 for Han.
This should have been an easy fight for Mora, because Han is a pretty flawed fighter without much in the way of power. However, Han had a clear advantage in hand speed, and this enabled him to make up for much of Mora’s superior boxing skills and experience.
Mora looked good for the first half of every round, but then he’d fade and get backed up to the ropes by Han and nailed repeatedly with short punches. Mora did a good job of making Han miss much of the time, but Han’s body shots always landed and there wasn’t much Mora could do about them.
Mora looked like he thought he was being slick when he would go to the ropes, but he took a lot of punishment each time he would fight from that point. Much of the time, Mora would tie Han up to stall out his attacks. All the holding Mora did in the second half of the fight was impossible to miss and it was surprising that the referee didn’t take points off for the excess holding.
What we learned from this fight is that Mora isn’t the same fighter that beat the last Vernon Forrest in 2008. Mora’s stamina isn’t the same, and he doesn’t have the punching power to be fighting in the middleweight division.
Had Mora been in the ring with a good or even a decent middleweight tonight, he likely would have been knocked out. Mora showed that he doesn’t have the talent to compete with guys like Gennady Golovkin, Miguel Cotto, Daniel Jacobs, Andy Lee, Billy Joe Saunders, Hassan N’Dam or Peter Quillin. Those guys would all do a number on Mora if they were to face him.
Other boxing results on the card:
Erickson Lubin UD 8 Michael Finney
Ahmed Elbiale TKO 1 Dustin Echard
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