By Manuel Perez: Welterweight Diobelys Hurtado (41-3, 25 KOs) defeated Arturo Morua (25-11-1, 14 KOs) by a 10-round split decision on Friday night to pick up the vacant World Boxing Organization Latino welterweight title at the Miccosukee Resort and Gaming, in Miami, Florida. Hurtado, 36, was dropped in the opening round, but came back to outwork Morua, 30, in rounds two through 10, getting the better of him with power punches and a stiff jab in the face. The final judges’ scores were 114-113, 114-113 for Hurtado, while the third judge scored the bout 114-113 for Morua.
The bout was marred by head butts, and a lot of sloppy fighting on both fighters’ part. Morua was cut in the 3rd high on his forehead, while Hurtado was cut in the 5th above his right eye from another head butt.
Hurtado, 36, a former World Boxing Association (WBA) light welterweight champion in 2002, looked a lot slower than he did in his prime 10 years ago when Hurtado was one of the best light welterweights in boxing.
The years have slowed him down and made it necessary for him to move up in weight. He struggled badly with Morua, who came into last night’s fight having lost four out of his last five bouts. Granted, the losses came against excellent fighters – Alex De Jesus, Ricardo Torres, Marcos Rene Maidana and Junior Witter, but those fighters didn’t have to struggle to beat Morua like Hurtado did last night.
Hurtado took a lot of punishment in the fight, suffering the cut over his right eye in the 5th and also having his entire face swollen up with various lumps from the heavy hands of Morua.
Hurtado tried to slug it out with Morua in the first half of the fight, and quickly discovered that wasn’t the thing to after eating a lot of hard rights from the bigger, more powerful Mexican fighter. In the 6th round, bleeding badly from a cut over his right eye, Hurtado fell back on his superior boxing skills to jab and control the 2nd half of the fight.
Hurtado moved often, jabbing and making Morua miss. Indeed, Morua missed over half his shots in every round and looked positively desperate in his wild looping shots. Perhaps if he had taken something off his shots, Morua would have had a better chance at landing them, but he seemed intent in trying to score a knockout.
Murua surprised Hurtado in the 1st round by landing a huge right hand near the end of the round that sent Hurtado down. Hurtado was more surprised than hurt, and sprang to his feet and continued fighting, although much more cautiously than before.
In the 2nd round, Morua continued landing hard right hands to the head, and stalking Hurtado around the ring. Hurtado was clearly the faster puncher, but he didn’t have the power of Morua on his shots.
Hurtado got the better of the action in the 3rd, throwing fast three punch flurries, often missing with one or two of them but connecting on the third. Morua wasn’t able to match him with hand speed, and had to be content with being able to catch Hurtado occasionally with a big right hand.
In the 4th round, Hurtado landed a lot of right hands, finding it easy to make contact with defensively limited Morua. At the same time, Hurtado did a good job making Morua miss with his power shots in the round by moving and ducking his punches.
Hurtado was having a good round in the 5th when he all of a sudden clashed heads with Morua, opening up a cut over the right eye of Hurtado that bled everywhere. The cut seemed to give Morua confidence and he finished the round strong landing some big right hands.
From the 6th to the 11th, Hurtado dominated the rounds with his constant movement and double jabs. Morua, a straight ahead fighter used to fighting against stationary targets, seemed lost against Hurtado and mostly followed him around absorbing jabs and missing with wild shots.
However, Morua was still able to land three or four good right hands in each round and by the 12th, Hurtado looked beaten up. Morua didn’t look so hot either, sporting a cut on the top of his forehead and swelling around his eyes.
In the 12th, Hurtado eased off on the gas pedal, and just focused on movement with limited jabbing. Morua was able to win the round, but he needed a knockdown or a knockout to win.