By Jim Dower: A slightly flabby around the midsection Erik Morales (52-7, 36 KO’s) failed to make the 140 pound weight limit during Friday’s weigh-in with challenger Danny Garcia (22-0, 14 KO’s) for Saturday’s fight at the Reliant Arena in Houston, Texas. As such, the 35-year-old Morales lost his WBC light welterweight title on the scales.

Garcia, 23, will still have a chance to capture the now vacant World Boxing Council title, but Morales can’t win it. Morales weighed in at 142lb, two pounds over the weight limit. For his part, Garcia weighed in at 139.5lb.

Morales had the option to re-weigh after failing to make weight. However, rather than struggle to take the weight off by doing exercises on a treadmill or going into a sauna to boil down, Morales instead chose to drink some water and forget about trying to make weight. Morales later said to ESPN “It wasn’t worth the sacrifice at this point for the last couple of pounds. It would hurt me.”

Morales would rather have a better chance of winning the fight then to hold onto the WBC title, which obviously is less important than Morales actually having a good chance of winning the fight. There really would be no point in Morales draining himself to try and make the weight if it means that he’ll lose.

Morales was likely to lose his WBC title to the bigger, stronger, faster and younger Garcia on Saturday anyway, so it’s not that big of a deal that the title is now gone. Morales doesn’t match up well with Garcia and will very likely take a beating on Saturday. It’s hard to say why Morales can’t get those stubborn pounds off of his midsection because the rest of his body looked skinny but you could see visible fat hanging off of the sides of Morales’ waistline and that shouldn’t have still been there after weeks and weeks of hard training.

Morales doesn’t have the frame to fight at welterweight and he’s going to have to make a big decision on his future if he can’t even make 140, which he’s not looked overly impressive at.

Other weights on the card:

James Kirkland 153.75 – Carlos Molina 153.75
Jose Luis Castillo 147.75 – Jose Miguel Cotto 144.5
Jamie Kavanagh 135.5 – Cesar Cisneros 133.5
Jermell Charlo 155 – Chris Chatman
Lenard Lane 143.5 – Milton Ramos 144.75
Jermall Charlo – Shawn Wilson