By Dan Ambrose: The undercard for the September 17th HBO telecast for the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Victor Ortiz will feature WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez going up against Alfonso Gomez in a nice little mismatch.
That fight will be shown as part of a split site telecast, as the Mayweather-Ortiz fight will be taking part at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, and the Alvarez-Gomez fight will be at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. For boxing fans watching it on HBO, it won’t matter, because the Alvarez-Gomez fight will be piped in as if all the fighters are in the same location. Also on the card is an odd fight between a couple of older fighters Erik Morales (51-7, 35 KO’s) vs. Jorge Barrios (50-4-1, 35 KO’s) for the WBC light welterweight paper title.
This is belt that was stripped from Timothy Bradley to clear the way for Morales to fight for a 4th world title, even that tough he just lost his last fight. It’s a kind of amusing that the WBC are willing to lob this softball for Morales to try and capture another title, because if Morales were to have to take on one of the top contenders for the title instead of a guy like Barrios, who isn’t even ranked in the light welterweight division, I don’t think Morales would do very well.
If Morales loses this one, it’s hard to see him getting a better chance in the future. If he can’t beat a guy picked out for him by the WBC then he really needs to hang them up or just be content with being a trail horse at this point. I can’t see Morales beating guys like Roberto Guerrero, Amir Khan and we already saw Morales lose to Maidana.
Also on the undercard is unbeaten light welterweight Jesse Vargas (16-0, 9 KO’s) vs. Joseito Lopez (29-3, 17 KO’s) in a 10 round bout. I’m not too unfamiliar with either of these guys, but it sounds like a good fight to go to the refrigerator during and get some refreshments.
The Mayweather vs. Ortiz fight is interesting enough that boxing fans probably won’t care that the undercard will have nothing really interesting to get excited about in terms of fights. Alvarez will blow out the older, weaker Gomez, and Morales will likely beat Barrios. If he doesn’t, it hardly matters because neither of these guys should be fighting for a title in the first place unless it’s one of those obscure ones that no one has ever heard of. Morales was a great fighter in the past but not anymore.
Comments are closed.