By Dan Ambrose: Three time world champion Erik Morales (51-6, 35 KO’s) looks downright old and decrepit in recent photos of him and Argentinian Marcos Maidana (29-2, 27 KO’), both of which fight on Saturday night at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Just forgetting about how inactive and poor Morales has been looking as of recently, he looks too old to beat Maidana. Morales looks more like a trainer than a fighter now and it’s hard to believe this guy is still fighting.
34 isn’t that old, but it sure looks old on Morales. Perhaps its the years of soft living in his three year retirement from 2007 to 2010, during which time Morales ballooned up from 135 to 190s. Whatever it is, Morales doesn’t look like the same youthful fighter that beat Manny Pacquiao in 2005 and fought Marco Antonio Barrera three separate times.
Morales may have forgotten more boxing knowledge than Maidana will ever know, but his body doesn’t look like it’s going to allow him to compete with the bigger, stronger and younger Maidana tomorrow night. Anytime an old timer comes back like this it’s better to see them in with a lesser step up fighter to see how well they’ll do before throwing them in with the sharks.
All we have to gauge Morales on is his fights against Francisco Lorenzo, Willie Limond and Jose Alfaro, and Morales almost lost two of those fights. I had Morales losing to both Alfaro and Lorenzo. I thought the judges really were incredibly generous with scoring Morales rounds in which he appeared to lose in my book.
Sometimes an old fighter like Morales can do well for three or four rounds when facing a young guy like Maidana before getting bludgeoned into oblivion. However, I don’t see Morales doing well for even a round. Maidana is too strong and will be all over Morales on Saturday night. It’s going to be a slaughter.
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