By Jason Kim: Former IBF bantamweight champion Abner Mares (23-0, 13 KO’s) will be moving up in weight on April 21st to take on former WBA World flyweight champion Eric Morel (46-2, 23 KO’s) in a classic match-up pitting the Mexican Mares against the Puerto Rican Morel at the Don Haskins Convention Center, in El Paso, Texas. Mares and the 36-year-old Morel will be fighting for the vacant WBC super bantamweight title.

It would seem pretty obvious that the younger 26-year-old Mares will likely win this fight on youth and work rate alone. A younger Morel would likely beat him if the two were fighting in the same weight class.

However, Morel was at his best in the flyweight division from 2001 to 2003. Morel lost some year of his career due to a prison stint. However, he’s looked pretty good since returning to action in 2008 and has won 11 consecutive fights since making his come back.

Mares won Showtime’s bantamweight tournament last year in August with a 12 round decision win over Joseph Agebeko in a controversial bout where Mares was teeing off with low blows all night long without losing any points. Mares time in the bantamweight tourney was spent winning fights but throwing a lot of low blows. It’s a miracle that Mares didn’t get disqualified in any of those fights because he was repeatedly landing low. To his credit, Mares did come back to defeat Agebeko in a rematch in December of last year and didn’t land any low blows in that fight. It was one of Mares’ rare fights where he didn’t land shots below the border.

Mares will give problems to Morel with his work rate. However, Morel can really punch and he’s going to test Mares’ chin in this fight. If Mares has problems taking shots, he’ll get blasted out in this fight. Given that Mares was able to hang against the hard punching Vic Darchinyan, Yonnhy Perez and Agbeko without getting knocked out tells me that he’ll have no problems handing the shots from Morel.