By Jim Dower: Erik Morales (51-6, 35 KO’s) has had exactly three fights since making his comeback in 2010 after a three-year retirement following four consecutive losses. Morales, 34, hasn’t looked good at in his three fights in 2010, and there’s an argument that you can make that Morales should have lost two out of the three to Jose Alfaro and Francisco Lorenzo.
I thought Morales lost both of those fights. Those were fights he should have been able to win easily if he wants to be given any chance at all in beating WBA light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana (29-2, 27 KO’s) on April 9th, in their fight at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Maidana vs. Morales appears to be a fight in which Morales has very little chance to win. He does have a good chance in getting hurt, because his slugging style is made to order for Maidana. Morales likes to come straight at his opponents looking to slug it out with them. Maidana often has to chase his opponents down in order to land his big shots. This was the case in Maidana’s recent fight with WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan last December.
Maidana stalked Khan all fight long until finally catching up to him and hurting him with a big right hand in the 10th. The rest of the fight was all Maidana, pounding Khan with constant power shots while the referee Joe Cortez periodically got in the way of Maidana’s work by separating him and Khan.
Morales, in his three fights during his comeback, has looked flabby around the midsection. He used to be slender as a fail with a narrow waist. He now has flab that spills over onto the sides of his trunks, making it seem as if he’s not in the best of shape. Morales will likely be flabby around the midsection when he takes on Maidana.
That seems to be there to stay. But the biggest problem for Morales in this fight is his lack of power to really hurt Maidana. Morales is going to be coming directly at Maidana firing with blanks. Morales’ power hasn’t carried up with him from the super bantamweight and featherweight divisions. At featherweight, Morales was a big puncher. But at light welterweight, Morales is as harmless as a kitten.
He’s moved up in weight three divisions but he left his power behind him in the featherweight division. The bad thing about Morales is that he can no longer trim of enough flab to get back down to featherweight without starving himself, and he’s not going to that because he’ll be too weak to fight like he was in his two rematches with Manny Pacquiao.
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