HOUSTON – Finally, Erik “El Terrible” Morales, at age 35, did not have enough of what once made him great to wrest a victory from a well-prepared young challenger. There was no shame in Morales’ losing, and there was enough pride in his effort to make Danny “Swift” Garcia’s victory a meaningful one.
Saturday in Reliant Arena, Philadelphia’s Garcia (23-0, 14 KOs) decisioned Tijuana’s Morales (52-8, 36 KOs) by unanimous scores of 117-110, 116-112, 118-109, in a fight for a junior welterweight title that Morales lost on the scale Friday, when he missed the fight’s contracted weight by two pounds.
Saturday, after an uneventful first round that Garcia nevertheless won with quicker hands, both fighters became slightly more active in the second. Despite a trio of right uppercuts landed by Morales at the midway point of round 2, though, the second belonged to Garcia much as the first had.
The end of the third round saw Garcia land a succession of right hands to Morales’ chin that forced the Mexican icon to drop his gloves, hold onto the ropes and look startled. Morales resumed his hesitancy in the opening third of round four before being caught with one Garcia right hand too many. Morales then adjusted his left guard, promised himself he’d not lower it again, and promptly had his best round of the fight.
After an even fifth that saw Garcia warned for a low blow, the Philadelphian pinned Morales to the ropes and assaulted him with lefts and rights for the opening 90 seconds of round 6. Then Morales, showing some of his world-class wiles, set a trap for the younger man and beat him back in the round’s final minute.
After that, Garcia made an adjustment of his own. He stopped endeavoring to hurt or stop Morales and merely tried to outbox him. The adjustment worked, and Garcia won the seventh, eighth and ninth.
Round 10, though, saw Morales find Garcia with right hands enough to begun a stream of blood from Garcia’s nose, marking the first round Morales convincingly won in four.
In the eleventh, Morales’ confidence led him to launch a right uppercut from distance, a classic no-no, and Garcia capitalized by dropping him with a left hook. Morales rose at the count of eight and made it to the end of the round, but his legs were not sturdy.
The fight ended much the way it began, with Garcia too young and fast for the Mexican veteran.
Ringside judges marked a wide unanimous decision for Garcia. And the 15rounds.com card concurred, scoring the match 117-111 in his favor.
KIRKLAND VS. MOLINA
A remarkable fight was stopped prematurely in Saturday’s co-main event. The culprit was a cornerman or referee, depending on one’s feelings about enforcing the letter of a regulation.
Texas super welterweight James Kirkland (31-1, 27 KOs) defeated Chicago’s Carlos Molina (19-5-2, 6 KOs) by 10th-round disqualification, in a fight Molina was winning, when Molina’s cornerman improperly stepped on the ring apron before the 10th round had officially concluded.
Afterwards, both Kirkland and Molina said they would like a rematch.
Molina started the fight boxing and moving well, circling away from Kirkland’s power and keeping himself out of reach with range-finding jabs and crosses to Kirkland’s body. After an even second round, Molina worked his way back on to Kirkland’s chest in the third, slowing the Texan’s pace and discomfiting him for at least two of the round’s three minutes.
In round 4, a trend emerged clearly: James Kirkland was fading after the first minute of each stanza. Kirkland would have little trouble finding Molina with left crosses and uppercuts, from his southpaw stance, but then would lose his pace after 60 seconds. Kirkland, his mouth open, would start taking breathers, and Molina would move forward, land scoring punches and steal rounds.
The fifth and sixth, both very close, were marked by Kirkland’s loading-up on aggressiveness and punches early, in the apparent hopes of making an impression enough on the judges that Molina’s lighter, though more sustained, offense would not sway them in the final 90 seconds of each round.
Rounds 7 and 8 saw declining activity from both men, but enough activity by Molina to win them. The eighth, particularly, saw Kirkland exposed in some ways as a prizefighter who is uncomfortable on the inside and incapable when pushed backwards.
Even the ninth round, which may have been Kirkland’s best, saw the Austin prizefighter fade late and collect light but effective right hands from Molina.
The 10th saw both men exhausted enough to land on the blue mat, Kirkland from exhaustion, Molina from a punch. And that was when the fight fell apart. Beating referee Jon Schorle’s count comfortably after the bell to end the round had rung, Molina walked back to his corner, where his trainer had already entered the ring. Enforcing a rule that mandates a fight must be stopped if a cornerman climbs on the apron before the end of a round, referee Schorle disqualified Molina, awarding a 10th round victory to Kirkland.
At the time of the stoppage, Molina was winning by majority-decision scores of 87-84, 88-83 and 85-86. The dissenting scorecard belonged to Texas judge Gale Van Hoy. The 15rounds.com ringside scorecard concurred with the other two judges, marking the match 88-85 for Molina.
“I’ve been refereeing 29 years,” said Schorle after the fight. “That’s the first time I’ve ever had to do that.”
UNDERCARD
In the last pre-television fight of the night, Houston super welterweight Jermell Charlo (17-0, 8 KOs) did what his brother Jermall could not earlier, dropping his opponent, Chicago’s Chris Chatman (10-2-1, 5 KOs), and stopping his match in a thrillingly concussive way. After an interesting pair of opening rounds, six minutes that saw Chatman look lively and Charlo slip most of his punches, Charlo floored Chatman, whose head slammed the blue mat, causing the fight to be stopped at 1:22 of round 3.
Irish lightweight Jamie Kavanaugh (9-0-1, 4 KOs), who fights out of California, needed none of his people’s fabled luck in the evening’s fourth match, working his way through Florida’s Cesar Cisneros (3-4-2, 1 KO) and stopping him at 2:28 of round 5. After being cut in the match’s opening stanza, Kavanaugh sat down on his punches, opened a gory gash over Cisnero’s right eye and finished the match with aplomb.
Local welterweight Lanard Lane (13-1, 8 KOs) completed Saturday’s third fight with an exclamation mark of sorts, beating on game but overmatched Milton Ramos (7-3-2) of Waco, Texas, and stopping him at 1:34 of their eighth and final round. In claiming the eighth knockout of his career, Lane showed every tool but stopping power, landing numerous right crosses without quite claiming Ramos’ consciousness and ultimately leaving the referee to stop the bout.
The second match of the night, a super welterweight match between undefeated Houstonian Jermall Charlo (9-0, 5 KOs) and Nebraskan Shawn Wilson (5-9, 1 KO), was a mismatch from its opening moments, as Charlo was too long, too well-schooled and too fast for Wilson, who fought with a certain strong-jawed resignation through the first four rounds before succumbing to a sustained assault and losing by technical knockout at 2:21 of round 5.
Saturday’s action began with a quick stoppage, when Florida super welterweight Daquan Arnett (2-0, 1 KO) dropped San Antonio’s Fabian Cancino (0-4) with a left hook to the liver. After an enthusiastic start, Cancino was unable to rise before the 10-count, and Arnett scored his first career knockout at 1:51 of round 1.
Opening bell rang on an empty Reliant Arena at 5:12 PM local time.
