MIRACULOUS MORALES MOVES AYALA OUT OF THE WAY OF THE TRILOGY WITH BARRERA
By Ron Brashear
Inside Boxing Writer/Columnist
INSIDE BOXING (11/16/2002) - Boxing fans were treated a boxing clinic administered by Erik "El Terrible" Morales tonight at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Erik Morales (42-1, 31 KOs) displayed pure superiority over Paulie Ayala (34-2, 12 KOs) and re-captured the WBC World Featherweight Title with a convincing twelve-round unanimous decision victory! Although the 3 judges scored this fight 117-111, 117-111 & 116-112 all in favor of Morales, one could make a case that it was more like 119-109, with perhaps only granting Ayala the 10th round in which he was able to land a few combinations on Morales to the head and body.
This was one of the most impressive performances that Morales has ever turned in his entire career. You may be wondering if Morales was that great, why wasn't Ayala knocked out? Good question. Especially giving the connection rate in which Morales landed his punches on Paulie.
Per Compubox statistics, Morales landed 422 out of 961 punches (44%) to Ayala landing 185 out of 852 (22%). As for power punches, it was Morales landing 312 out of 597 (52%) against Ayala landing 168 out of 638 (26%).
Morales was extremely accurate from the onset of this bout with right uppercuts, over-hand rights, good left jabs, and even displayed much better defense than he has been known for in the past. Ayala's left-eye began to swell in the 4th round due to the vicious uppercuts from Morales. By the 8th round, Ayala's left-eye was practically shut. However, there were no knockdowns in this fight and neither fighter was ever in extreme trouble.
So just as Miraculous as Morales was in administering this beating on Ayala, Paulie was equally as Miraculous in absorbing this amount of punishment. The theme turned out to be very appropriate; "NEVER SURRENDER", because without that type of fortitude by Ayala; he, or his corner, could have easily thrown in the towel very early in this fight.
After the fight Morales indicated that he had hurt his hand and stated, "Unfortunately, I tried to end it early but I hurt my hand, but it was a good fight"
As for plans to fight Barrera next or to move up in weight, Morales offered, "The weight, I will hang around and we can make the 3rd fight. If HBO wants to make this fight, it could be done, give me a good offer."
I had predicted that Morales would win by TKO over Ayala. I went on to even state that I wouldn't expect too many surprises in this fight either. Well, the surprise that I witnessed was the courage of Ayala to stand in there and take the punishment for the full 12 rounds.
Afterwards Ayala said, "I really couldn't catch him that solid. He is a strong man even though he is thin man. He's strong for being thin and he got some good defense even though he doesn't move that much."
Giving the resiliency of Ayala, complimented by the brilliance that Morales displayed, an argument can definitely now be made as to who is the "BEST" FEATHERWEIGHT fighter in the world today? Ayala predicts that Barrera would win the fight. I'm not so sure about that.
Let's hope this fight clearly paves the way for MORALES vs. BARRERA III and the promoters, managers, etc, will do what's right for the sport of boxing and bring the fans this bout ASAP! Then we will all receive the much-anticipated answer.
As for Ayala, my hat is off to him and if he can go the distant with a Featherweight King such as Morales, I don't see any reason why he could not move back down to the 122lb class and become the Undisputed Champion!
Congratulations go out to both of these fighters for treating the boxing fans to such a wonderful night of boxing!
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Ron Brashear can be contacted at brashear@insideboxing.com, ron@brasheargear.com