By Eric Thomas: A much rejuvenated WBC light middleweight champion Vernon Forrest (40-2, 29 KOs) will be defending his title against the light-hitting Sergio Mora (20-0-1, 5 KOs) on June 7th, at the Mohegan Sun Casino, in Uncasville, Connecticut. Mora, 27, a former participant in the NBC boxing reality TV show called The Contender, has done little to warrant this title shot against Forrest. In fact, Mora, a middleweight, isn’t ranked in the top #15 at all in the light middleweight division, which makes him an odd choice for an opponent against Forrest, since there would seem to be many other more deserving contenders in the light middleweight division that rightfully deserve more the shot against Forrest than Mora.

However, it’s obvious that Mora is getting the shot at Forrest because of his former experience on The Contender, which he fought previously on in 2004, winning the series to become The Contender series champion with wins over Ishe Smith, Jesse Brinkly and Peter Manfredo Jr. Other than that, Mora defeated Manfredo once more in a rematch in October 2005, beating him by an 8-round split decision. As meaningless as those wins were, there were some in the boxing community that thought Mora might have the talent to one day win a title in the middleweight division. Perhaps with those thoughts in mind, Mora was offered a shot at Jermain Taylor in 2007, which he turned down for some reason.

Additionally, he chose not to fight Kassim Ouma, a top light middleweight, in 2007. Perhaps from these two instances, Mora was considered by some boxing fans to be afraid to mix it up against the top fighters in the division. Mora, however, may end up quieting his critics if he can defeat Forrest, yet it’s going to be a tall order for him considering his lack of top flight opposition in his career. Mora doesn’t have much power to speak of, meaning that he has to use his boxing skills to try and out-slick his opponents from the outside.

Mora does well against slower moving fighters, where he can jab and his lightning fast left hook from the outside. However, he can be outworked, which was the case against middleweight Elvin Ayala, whom he fought to a disappointing 10-round draw in October 2007. Mora appeared to lose the fight, however, and few people felt that he won the fight afterwards. That was a really telling fight for Mora, as Ayala was recently totally dominated by IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham, who stopped in him in the 12th round of a one-sided fight in March 2008
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As for Forrest, he’s been very impressive winning five consecutive fights since coming off a two year layoff from 2003-2005 for shoulder problems. Forrest, now 37, looks and fights years younger than that, almost as good as his championship form in 2002, a time in which Forrest twice defeated Shan Mosely and held the WBC welterweight title. Forrest would later meet his match in Ricardo Mayorga, who would beat him twice in back to back defeats in 2003. Since that time, however, Forrest has looked invincible, defeating Sergio Rios, Elco Garcia, Ike Quartey, Carlos Baldomir and most recently Michele Piccirillo. The wins over Rios, Quartey, Baldomir and Piccirillo were especially impressive, as Forrest totally dominated these excellent fighters, beating them badly in one-sided fights.

In Piccirillo’s case, Forrest dropped him three times in the process of stopping him in the 11th round in December 2007. I personally consider Rios, Quartey and Piccirillo to all be better fighters than Mora, who would have his hands full with any of them. I see Forrest easily defeating an over-matched Mora, who will be lucky to win any of the rounds. This is going to be a one-sided fight, believe me, with Forrest stopping Mora by the 8th or 9th rounds. Mora just doesn’t have the class to compete against a fighter at the level and experience of Forrest.

Rightfully, Mora should be fighting at the bottom of the light middleweight and middleweight divisions, where he’d likely have his hands full with fighters like Gary Lockett and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Those are good fights for a fighter of Mora’s class, but not against someone like Forrest, who will quickly take his head off.