Lee Haskins defeats Ivan Morales

By Boxing News - 05/14/2016 - Comments

haskins8By Scott Gilfoid: Making his first defense of his IBF bantamweight title, champion Lee Haskins (33-3, 14 KOs) successfully defended his title on Saturday night in beating #13 IBF fringe contender Ivan Morales (29-2, 17 KOs) by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision from the Ice Arena, in Cardiff, Wales.

The final judges’ scores were 119-108, 118-110 and 118-110. Morales was giving Haskins all kinds of problems in forcing him to fight from the outset. Haskins, 32, looked like he wanted no part of the younger 24-year-old Morales, so he was running at every chance he could get.

It was one of those type of fights where the judges were obviously more impressed with Haskin’s clean-landing shots made on the run rather than the shots that Morales was doing from the pressuring that he was putting the aging champion under. Morales couldn’t catch up to Haskins due to his constant movement. It was so ugly to watch.

All in all, it was not a great fight to watch unless you like watching a nice game of cat and mouse. Myself, I like to see action and I can’t give points to runners. As such, I think the fight should have been a heck of a lot closer than it was. I mean, I still think Haskins won, but just barely.

I’m just wondering why Morales was chosen from near the bottom of the IBF heap rather than Haskins fighting a top five or even a top three contender. Morales had been soundly beaten just two fights ago by Edgar Jimenez in August of last year. Given that Morales was recently beaten, I think he wasn’t the most highly deserving contender to be fighting for a world title against Haskins. I’m just saying. How about Haskins fighting someone that’s winning rather than losing. I would have preferred seeing Haskins fight one of these top contenders rather than the recently beaten Ivan Morales: Stuart Hall, Takahiro Yamamoto, Emmanuel Rodriguez, Omar Narvaez, Rodrigo Guerrero, Anselmo Moreno, Alexis Santiago, Ryan Farrag, Karim Guerfi or Zolani Tete.

I hate to say it but I can’t see Haskins holding onto his IBF title for any length of time. As soon as Haskins fights someone with a shred of talent, I see him losing his IBF strap. I think Haskins is a good boxer/runner type fighter, but that style only carries you so far. When you fight a guy that can cut off the ring and put some pressure on, the runners tend to fall apart mentally and physically.