By William Mackay: In his loss last April to Marcos Maidana, Erik Morales (51-7, 35 KO’s) was exposed for having problems with Maidana’s work rate and overall superior conditioning, which allowed him to work a lot harder than Morales’ aging 35-year-old body permitted him. Morales ended up losing a 12 round decision to Maidana.

On September 17th, Morales will be facing a fighter that has arguably better stamina, a superior workrate and power that is very close to that of Maidana in 28-year-old Lucas Matthysse (28-2, 26 KO’s) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Matthysse isn’t as powerful as Maidana, but he’s very close and can do things that Maidana can’t or won’t do in the ring, such as box and throw to the body.

Morales is someone that has problems with fighters that can box. He does well against guys that come right at him and look to trade in a phone booth sized area. However, Morales has aged to the point where he has problems fighting hard for long stretches without needing to take three or four rounds of to rest. This is what happened in the Maidana fight, and that’s the main reason Morales lost.

Morales is currently working on fixing his stamina problem in his training camp for this fight, but don’t expect any miracles to happen in that area on September 17th. The fact of the matter is when you take three years off from boxing the way that Morales did, and let your weight get way out of control the way that Morales did during those years, it’s next to impossible to regain the stamina of your youth no matter how hard you try. On top of that. Morales is now 35, and that’s not young for a small fighter.

It’s pretty much academic that Morales is going to get outworked by Matthysse. If he tries to keep up with the younger fighter, Morales is going to gas out and lose rather badly. He needs to try and fight hard in the last 20 seconds of every round and try to steal enough rounds to convince the judges that he was the better man. That’s about the best Morales can hope for. It doesn’t matter if Matthysse dominate the first 2 1/2 minutes of every round, it’s been proven time and time again that judges seem to focus more on what happens in the last 20 seconds of every round more than the vast majority when scoring rounds.