By Jim Dower: It’s no surprise that former IBF bantamweight champion Abner Mares (24-0-1, 13 KO’s) was able to beat 36-year-old past his best Eric Morel (46-3, 23 KO’s) by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision to capture the vacant WBC super bantamweight championship on Saturday night at the Don Haskins Convention Center, in El Paso, Texas.

What’s surprising is that the World Boxing Council sanctioned this fight in the first place given that Morel hasn’t fought a live opponent since winning a questionable decision over Gerry Penalosa in February 2010.

The Mares-Morel fight was competitive for exactly two minutes of the first round. After the 2 minute mark, the fight was hopelessly one-sided with Mares taking the fight to an over-matched Morel easily winning the bout. The final judges’ scores were 120-107, 119-109, and 119-109. I only gave one round to Morel – the 12th when he went all out to try and score a knockout, but to no avail. Other than 12th, the fight was all Mares’ as he pounded Morel with body shots, looping right hands and stiff jabs all night long.

Mares hurt Morel with a left hook in the 2nd round that staggered him. In the 5th, Morel was cut slightly on the left side of his eye, but it really didn’t bleed much at all.

The fight was near unwatchable from the 2nd round on because it was so one-sided. It was a bad fight to put together in the first place unless your Golden Boy Promotions looking to get an easy paper title for Mares. But for boxing fans, it was bad television.

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In another bad fight on the card, WBA Super World bantamweight champion Anselmo Moreno (33-1-1, 12 KO’s) stopped David De La Mora (24-2, 17 KO’s) by a 9th round TKO. Moreno, 26, knocked De la Mora down in the 2nd and the 6th rounds. The fight was halted after the 9th round when De La Mora’s corner decided he’d had enough punishment.

Moreno dropped De La Mora with a right hook to the head. Shortly after he got up, Moreno badly hurt De La Mora with a hard right to the midsection just before the round ended. It was a good thing for De La Mora that it happened right before the round was about to end because there’s no way that De La Mora would have been able to continue fighting with the pain he was in. As it was, he needed to stand and walk it off between rounds.

In the 6th, Moreno knocked De La Mora down with a big left to the body. He got up and was able to make it out of the round, but he took a lot of punishment along the way.

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In a big upset, #6 IBF super middleweight contender Librado Andrade (30-5, 23 Ko’s) was stopped in the 3rd round by 32-year-old little known Rowland Bryant (16-1, 11 KO’s). Andrade, 33, was hurt by a short right hook from the big punching Bryant in the 3rd. Bryant then teed off on Andrade with a series of big rights that had Andrade’s head getting whip-lashed from side to side. The referee Robert Velez stepped in and halted the bout at 2:19 of the round with Andrade still standing. It was a debatable stoppage, however, because Andrade looked like he was okay and Bryant may have punched himself out. But given that Andrade wasn’t punching back, it’s understandable that the referee halted the fight when he did.

Bryant is a big, big puncher with limited boxing skills. He probably won’t ever beat a quality fighter that can box, but you give him a fighter that stands directly in front of him like Andrade did tonight, and Bryant will thrive. He was teeing off on Andrade in the 1st round with big shots that had the crowd really into the fight. Andrade ended up suffering a nasty cut on the side of his left eye from a head clash in the round. However, in the 2nd round, Andrade dominated the action with his nonstop punching and Bryant suddenly didn’t look good at all. In fact, he looked like a limited 2nd tier fighter who had met his match. But in the 3rd round, Andrade stood in close right in the first line for Bryant’s short power punches and he paid for it by getting hurt with one of Bryant’s big right hands. The rest was history, as Bryant, mainly a right hand puncher with no real left hand to speak of, went right hand happy, hitting Andrade with eight big un-aswered shots that backed him up to the ropes where the referee then hastily jumped in and halted the fight.

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In other action on the card:

Luis Ramos Jr. UD 10 Daniel Attah
Francisco Vargas TKO 3 Rafael Lora