 The Worldwide Boxing Magazine Site |
Got your free t-shirt yet? |
| articles from the magazine ... |
|
February 2001
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
|
 |
MORALES With Naseem Hamed looming large in the background, the all-Mexican featherweight title showdown between undefeated Erik 'El Terrible' Morales and World Boxing Council champ Guty Espadas in Las Vegas on 17 February takes on a greater significance. |
|
Morales will be favourite with the Mexican fans as well as boxing experts worldwide
- Get Big Pic Hamed is due to meet Marco Antonio Barrera — yet another of those tenacious Mexicans — in April as part of a new policy of taking on the toughest opponents available. Then, assuming he wins, the Prince is expected to face the Morales-Espadas winner. And that is likely to be Morales, who is a big betting favourite over his countryman. Morales has been calling out Hamed for a long time now. Even when the Mexican held the world title in the super bantam (8st 10lbs, or 122lbs) division, he had Hamed very much on his mind. Now Morales is a fully grown featherweight, having won three fights by KO in the 9st (126lbs) division. The fight with Hamed, which could secure him for life financially, appears closer than it has ever been. But Espadas is in the way and, despite the odds, the defending champ will not, I suspect, be easily dismissed in the title fight at the MGM Grand casino hotel (with television coverage on America’s Home Box Office network). The two should have clashed last September at El Paso, but the champion suffered a shoulder injury. Instead, Morales faced substitute Kevin Kelley and battered the 33-year-old into defeat (though not into retirement) in seven mostly one-sided rounds. Five months on, Morales, who has halted 30 opponents in 38 consecutive wins, gets his delayed chance to be a two-time world champ, having vacated the WBC super bantam title after nine defences when struggling to make 122 pounds became too much for him. He is a high profile, exciting fighter, and this is one of those fights where the challenger overshadows the champion, even though Espadas has solid credentials (33 wins and two defeats, with 21 KOs). But Espadas is one of those champions who is almost unknown outside the hard core boxing community. He is an efficient, technical type of boxer but is not one of those Mexicans who arouses his compatriots’ passion. Not like his dad, Guty Espadas Sr., who was a hard-hitting, slugging flyweight champ in the 1970s. I saw a video the other week of Espadas Sr. in his 10-round draw against a stylish Afro-American named Willie Jensen, which took place in Los Angeles almost 25 years ago, and what a fight it was. Espadas was knocked flat on his back by a left hook in round one but came back to rock the taller, classier Jensen several times. But the son is not that type of slam-bang warrior. Espadas Jr. has been schooled by Nacho Beristain, a rather solemn-looking, moustached gentleman who is one of Mexico’s top trainers and who likes his students to box in a more calculating, take-fewer-punches, style than that associated with the so-called “traditional” Mexican fighter. Espadas is tall and rangy, like Morales. He is not as explosive, but he has ability, as he showed when he easily mastered the Filipino veteran, Luisito Espinosa, to become WBC champ last April. Although the fight ended on a technical decision in the 11th round, with Espadas cut in a clash of heads, the Mexican was dominating. He dropped Espinosa in the first round and never let the Filipino get into the fight. It was considered a major upset. In June, Espadas easily outpointed a Thai in defence of the title. But then his shoulder injury forced him out of a scheduled defence against Morales at El Paso. I thought Morales would win when the match was first scheduled, and the feeling has become stronger. Morales can be caught — Kevin Kelley clipped him on the chin a few times — but he keeps coming and keeps punching, machine-like, implacable. In his last fight — his third as a featherweight — he blasted an overmatched Rodney Jones in one round in December. Jones is an ordinary fighter, true, but he had been the full 10 rounds with a lightweight champ, Paul Spadafora. To blow right through him in one round was an impressive showing by Morales. The 24-year-old Morales simply looks too strong and powerful for the 26-year-old defending champ, but Espadas is a much better, stronger fighter than when he suffered his two defeats, in 1996, when he was halted by the veteran Darryl Pinckney on a six-rounds retirement and outpointed by former 122-pound champ Jesus Salud. The fight is unlikely to be as thrilling as Morales’s Mexican civil war with Marco Antonio Barrera last February, but it should be a good one. There is Mexican pride on the line here, as well as the title. I do not expect a quick blowout by Morales and, in fact, I believe that Espadas will have good moments with his counter punching. But, by the 10th round, the power and pressure of Morales should have taken its toll. |
|
Also available to read from issue:
|
|
On sale on the last Thursday of every month Ensure you never miss a copy . . . buy your subscription or back issues here. |