By Eric Thomas: IBF bantamweight champion Abner Mares will be moving up in weight on April 21 to fight for the vacant World Boxing Council (WBC) super bantamweight title against Eric Morel (46-2, 23 Ko’s) at the Don Haskins Convention center in El Paso, Texas.
This is one of those fights that are hard to tell who will come out as the winner. Mares has looked good at times in the past year years in beating guys like Joseph Agbeko, Vic Darchinyan and Yonnhy Perez, but he’s also looked beatable and foul prone.
In a series of fights, Mares seemed to have serious aiming problems for his shots to the midsection with a lot of them straying low again and again, leaving his opponents shaken from the repetitive jarring blows to the groin region. It all seemed to come to a head in his first fight against Agbeko in August 2011 when Mares threw low blow after low blow without losing any points. He was even given credit for a knockdown in the 11th with one of his textbook version low blows that landed square on the cup, leaving Agbeko in pain on the canvas.
It’s hard to say what the 36-year-old Morel has left in the tank, because he hasn’t fought anyone good for ages. This is a big step up fight for him since his fight against Martin Castillo in 2005. You don’t like to see fighters go that long in between taking on quality opponents but what can you do when they insist on taking the soft fights?
Mares is getting buy right now with a tremendous work rate to compensate for his lack of power. He simply outworks everyone he faces, making it very difficult for them to match him punch for punch with him throwing 80 to 100 punches per round. It’s hard to beat those kinds of fighters unless you can hurt them with something. That’s where Mares is very good. He’s got a really strong chin that enables him to take the best from his opponents. He had no problem absorbing the best shots from Vic Darchinyan and Joseph Agbeko, two hard punchers. Mares may have problems in the future if he ever gets matched up against Nonito Donaire, because he punches very hard and is someone that is looking to knock you out with every shot.
Morel still has good power despite getting up there in age. He’s above his old weight class of super flyweight but still able to fight at a very high level.
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