By Allan Fox: WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley was impressed with what he saw of 35-year-old Erik Morales in his 12 round decision loss against unbeaten Danny Garcia last weekend. Bradley thinks Morales has a little left in the tank and he thought he did a good job of busting up the 23-year-old Garcia. Bradley thought Morales would have beaten Garcia had he been a little bit younger.

Bradley said this to RingTV “I learned that Morales can still fight, man. If Morales would have been a couple of years younger, man, then he would have beaten that you boy. You know, he had that you boy hurt…Morales really did some damage to that kid. The kid didn’t look that good to me in there.”

Indeed, Danny Garcia looked very vulnerable in that fight and not even close to being impressive despite winning the fight by the scores of 117-110, 116-112 and 118-108. The scores showed that the judges saw Garcia as easily winning the fight. However, Garcia took a lot of head shots from Morales and ended up taking a real beating in the 10th, getting his nose busted up in that round.

Bradley is right about Morales beating Garcia if he was younger, although I still don’t think Morales would have beaten Garcia had a 33-year-old Morales been in there with Garcia instead of the 35-year-old version. Morales didn’t look at all good two years ago in starting his comeback.

You’d have to go back to 2005 for Morales to beat Garcia, because in 2006 and 2007, Morales was having serious issues with his weight by trying to fight at super featherweight and lightweight but no longer able to make those weights without draining himself completely. Morales would have beaten Garcia during that time if the fight was held at 140, but not at super featherweight or lightweight because he had eaten himself out of those divisions after his big win over Manny Pacquiao in March 2005. It’s unclear what happened to Morales after that fight, but it could be that he may have put on too much weight after that fight because he started having big problems making weight in his fights after that one. Although Pacquiao beat Morales two times after their initial fight, Pacquiao beat a weight drained Morales in both fights. It wasn’t the same Morales. He had gotten bigger and couldn’t fight at super featherweight any longer despite trying.