By Jason Kim: Erik Morales (51-6, 35 KO’s) is gambling big by taking on knockout artist Marcos Maidana (29-2, 27 KO’s) on April 9th, hoping he can resurrect his career with a win over one of the most popular fighters in the light welterweight division. Morales, 34, is two divisions above the last time he was able to find any real success at super featherweight, and it’s pretty clear that Morales doesn’t belong at light welterweight.

Morales’ power and speed just aren’t there at this weight class. The problem that Morales has is that he probably can’t find his way back to featherweight and super featherweight because it would require for him to take off too much weight, and he would be weakened in the process. During Morales’s three year retirement from 2007 to 2010, he put on a great deal of weight, and looked huge.

To his credit, Morales has taken off massive amounts of fat, but it would likely be asking too much of him to take off even more to get down to his old fighting weight. As such, Morales still has visible flab hanging off the sides of his midsection and he looks like he could stand to lose 15 pounds to get down to a solid weight of 125. In other words, Morales is still a featherweight in terms of muscle and power, but is carrying around extra weight that makes it necessary for him to fight at a higher weight class.

Without the power to compete against the hard hitting Maidana, Morales is going to have problems on April 9th. He doesn’t have the boxing ability to keep away from Maidana the way that Amir Khan did last December, and he doesn’t like to hold when he fights. He’s not going to be able to survive for rounds at a time the way that Khan was able to from the 10th to the 12th by constantly clinging to Maidana. Morales isn’t that kind of fighter. If he gets hurt, he’s going to go down swinging rather than hoping to cling to Maidana for round after round to try and survive. This is why it’s likely going to be over fast for Morales in this fight. He can’t run, and he won’t hold and push the way Khan did. It’s going to be bad for Morales.