By Chris Williams: WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez (52-5-1, 38 KO’s) is the last fighter I would think would opt for an easy fight. Marquez has been a warrior his entire career and never taken the easy road. However, with Marquez now signed on to fight the badly shot Erik Morales (51-6, 35 KO’s) for a bout on April 9th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada, you have to wonder whether Marquez is following in the footsteps of Manny Pacquiao and taking easy fights.
Pacquiao is fighting the shot looking Shane Mosley, who at 39 isn’t nearly what he used to be as a fighter. The same can be said about Morales, only he’s even more shot than Mosley, yet he’s five years younger at 34. Morales has four out of his last seven fights. If you take away his three wins over B level opponents since he made his comeback in 2010, Morales has lost his last four relevant fights.
You can pretty much dismiss Morales’ last three wins over soft opponents Jose Alfaro, Willie Limond and Franciso Lorenzo. None of those fighters are anything near the quality of Marquez, and Morales should have lost the fight to Alfaro by a landslide and his recent narrow win over Lorenzo looked more like a draw to me than any kind of win.
Marquez wants to get a fight with Pacquiao in the future, but according to Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum, he wants Marquez to beat a quality welterweight. What Marquez hopes in accomplishing by taking on the light welterweight Morales is beyond me. To be sure, Morales is ranked #2 by the World Boxing Council in the light welterweight division, but I have no respect for the WBC’s ranking in any of the divisions. Morales does not deserve to be ranked at number #2 by the WBC, and certainly doesn’t deserve to be ranked against much more relevant fighters like Victor Ortiez, Andriy Kotelnik and Danny Garcia.
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