UPSETS HAPPEN

Always tenacious, always in tremendous condition and always ready to give his all for 12 full rounds, Paulie Ayala brings one of boxing’s greatest work ethics to the ring once more when he faces Erik "El Terrible" Morales at the Mandalay Bay casino resort, Las Vegas on 16 November.

At stake is the vacant World Boxing Council featherweight title but more important is that, at the age of 32, Ayala gets just reward for gruelling victories and crowd-pleasing fights with his first million-dollar purse (actually $1,200,000, believed to be $300,000 less than Morales is making) in a fight that will be televised on pay-per-view in the U.S.

Nothing has ever come easily for Ayala. The southpaw from Fort Worth, Texas, is not one of those stunning punchers — just 12 opponents stopped in a record of 34 wins and one loss — nor is he a particularly classy boxer, or especially fast.

But he is steady and earnest and, as they say, he gets the job done. He has boxing skills that are sound rather than scintillating, a no-frills, well-schooled fighter. He can jab, counter, go to the body, bring over the right hook or fire a straight left through the middle from his southpaw posture, and he is crafty in his way, especially in the manner he triggers off bursts of punches at key moments in hard-fought rounds.

One of his best assets, I think, is the ability to come right back with punches after getting hit himself so that a lot of rounds in his fights become hard to score — and goodness knows he has won his share of controversial decisions.
And he has never, to my knowledge, been in a bad fight.

Ayala’s insistent way of fighting has carried him to victories over the likes of Johnny Tapia (twice), Bones Adams (twice), Johnny Bredahl and the heavy-handed Thai, Saohin Srithai Condo, in title bouts. He has won 11 times over the full championship 12-round route and he is one of the few boxers who really does seem to get stronger as the fight goes on.

But despite all of Ayala’s qualities he is going into this fight as a definite underdog.
Morales, 26, is younger, taller, naturally bigger and the superior puncher. And the fighter from the Mexican border town of Tijuana seems so confident that he is talking as if victory is a formality.

"El Terrible" points out that Ayala was knocked down in his controversial win over the useful but not particularly outstanding Mexican Hugo Dianzo (actually, TV replays showed that Dianzo stepped on Ayala’s foot while throwing a right hand but an eight count was given).

This leads Morales to believe that he can hit — and hurt — Ayala with right hands. "If Dianzo can knock him down, I will knock him out," is essentially what Morales has been saying.

Ayala is never one to say too much about what he thinks will happen in a fight, but his veteran trainer, Henry Mendez, said over the phone from Fort Worth: "I would guarantee and bet you any amount of money, Morales is not going to knock us out. He might get lucky with a decision but there’s no way he can knock us out. Paulie has sparred with Freddie Norwood [the former featherweight champion] many times and Norwood’s a better puncher than Morales and he couldn’t faze us."

Mendez added that Ayala has been using weight training to build up strength and says that although his man is moving up in weight after winning titles at bantam and super bantam he actually has boxed at featherweight once before, in the rematch with Johnny Tapia.

"Inside, I know we’ll be a lot stronger than he is," Mendez said. "We’ve heard his comments that Paulie’s gonna come right into him, so we’ve been doing a lot of work with boxing and moving, give him different things than what he’s looking at on a tape. And I think he’s only looking at one tape, this Hugo Dianzo that we fought here in Fort Worth — and that was one of the worst fights of our career due to a lot of personal facts. If he wants to go by that tape, that’s fine. But we’ll fight him both ways. We have to adjust. In other words, if he wants to box, we’ll box him. If he wants to fight inside, he’s a loser because we’re way stronger than he is."

All well and good, but Morales is one of the toughest fighters in the game with an indomitable will — promoter Bob Arum’s "Never Surrender" billing sums up the attitude of both men — and sky-high confidence after his rematch with Marco Antonio Barrera last June that many thought he won, although the judges scored unanimously the other way.

Morales had won 41 consecutive bouts (31 KOs) prior to losing to Barrera and despite not getting the verdict I thought it was one of Morales’ best fights from a technical perspective.

I wouldn’t call Morales a stylish boxer but he is certainly an effective one. He is able to throw a variety of punches with good form, upstairs and down, and he keeps his composure in the heat of battle.

In a way he reminds me of Ayala in that, just when a fight seems to be slipping away, he comes back banging. We saw this in the first fight with Barrera, when Morales weathered some serious punches and surged back with both hands to pull out the unpopular, split win.

The rematch saw both men in more of a "boxer" mode, but while Morales fought with intelligence it seemed that Barrera was stronger in the second half of the fight. But, even then, Morales was getting through with good punches.
Those two battles with Barrera are what most people would consider Morales’s defining fights, but "El Terrible" has beaten six world champs in two weight divisions (super bantam and featherweight) and captured his first title five years ago. This is a seasoned, savvy and solidly reliable fighter of high calibre. Just like Ayala.

In analysing the fight, we have to wonder if Ayala’s southpaw stance will give Morales problems. I somehow do not think it will. Ayala is not one of those slippery or awkward southpaws. And, in any case, I’ve seen Morales knock out several left-handers, starting with a smart boxer named Rudy Bradley, in 1996 to be followed by wins over Daniel Zaragoza, Angel Chacon and Kevin Kelley.

In all of these fights, Morales was physically stronger (not to mention being much younger than the ageing Zaragoza and Kelley). He found a way to get through with the right hand and his opponents could not hold him off.
What will be of major significance in this bout will be whether or not Ayala can hit Morales hard enough to get his respect. 

If Morales starts to feel that he can walk through Ayala, we could see him dominating the fight. 
But if Ayala can nail Morales consistently he can break up his rhythm and perhaps slow him down. Morales has shown a tendency to fade late in fights. If Ayala is in the fight for nine rounds and doesn’t take too much punishment he might be able to outlast Morales down the stretch. Morales lost the last two rounds on the judges’ cards in his unpopular win over Guty Espadas, when he won the featherweight title; he lost the final round in both bouts with Barrera (and was, of course, down in the final round in the first meeting) and he lost the 12th on all scorecards against the Korean, Inji Chi. So there seems to be a pattern there.

Morales’s right hand will be a constant threat, but while Ayala can certainly be hit he does perhaps take more punches on his gloves than we sometimes realise, and for this fight he plans on using more head movement, rolling under the punches, being well aware that his opponent will be loading up on the right hands.
And here it’s worth noting that the Mexican has not scored a knockdown in his last three title fights (against Espadas, Chi and Barrera), a total of 36 rounds, although many thought he put Barrera down with a right to the body in what was officially a slip.

If Ayala gets caught and hurt early, he’s in trouble for the rest of the fight, I fear, but if he can get into the middle rounds without any serious wobbles I believe he can put real pressure on Morales.

The tactical aspect of the fight is rich with intrigue. It would not surprise me to see Morales stand off and box, making use of his height and reach (he is usually listed at about 5ft 8ins, which would make him two-and-a-half inches taller than Ayala). But if Ayala can get his right jab working, move his head and keep his gloves up, weave his way inside and go the body, there is a possibility that he can deny Morales the leverage to throw big punches while outworking and outhustling his opponent. That must be Ayala’s method here: hard-working, always doing something — even if it is just sticking out the jab — and not allowing Morales to settle down or get into a rhythm.

And Ayala could do it. But the difference in punching power, I suspect, is what ultimately will decide this fight. Ayala might be able to score points, but the heavier blows of Morales are likely to be doing the greater damage. I can picture him using his left jab to keep Ayala on the outside and steadying his opponent with the right hand. If Ayala can work his way under and around the right, he can, perhaps, impose his own style of boxing, but the height difference could mean that he gets caught just when he thinks he is out of harm’s way. 

So, for me, it looks as if Morales will be the winner, probably on points. Ayala can be encouraged, though, by the fact that I tipped against him in both fights with Johnny Tapia and in the first meeting with Bones Adams. He’s the underdog again but this is nothing new to Ayala — and he overcame bigger odds than this when he beat Tapia in their initial meeting. So if Ayala does pull off an upset, in a strange way it will be perfectly true to form.