By Eric Thomas: To no great surprise WBC light welterweight champion Erik Morales (52-7, 36 KO’s) has pulled out of his scheduled January 28th bout against #1 World Boxing Council challenger Danny Garcia (22-0, 14 KO’s) following gallbladder surgery that the 35-year-old Morales had last week.
Despite undergoing surgery, Morales incredibly still had hoped to make the fight but he reportedly given advice from his doctor not to take the risk of fighting.
It’s unclear as of now whether the Morales-Garcia cancellation will unravel the entire card, which has James Kirkland vs. Carlos Molina on the undercard as the co-feature bout. The fight card was supposed to be televised on HBO. Golden Boy Promotions matchmaker Eric Gomez doesn’t seem to optimistic that the card will go through, saying to ESPN “I don’t think HBO wants to do a replacement fight or go with a stand-alone fight. In an area like Houston, with a lot of Latinos, a lot of Mexicans, you need Erik Morales on the card, so it’s a big blow for us. I don’t what’s going to happen.”
The Morales vs. Garcia fight may end up getting postponed sometime in February as long as Morales’ incision heals properly and there are no other medical complications from the surgical procedure.
This was going to be a very tough fight for Morales, as he didn’t look good in beating 22-year-old #12 ranked Pablo Cesar Cano by a 10th round stoppage last September to capture the vacant WBC title. Morales took a lot of punishment against an inexperienced fighter that a lot of the top light welterweights would have likely had no problems beating. Morales had major problems in that fight and he was going to have additional issues with Garcia had the fight gone through.
Garcia, 23, defeated former lightweight champion Nate Campbell and Kendall Holt to get this opportunity to fight Morales.
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