In 2005, Zahir Raheem pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the 21st century so far in absolutely outclassing one of the best P4P fighters alive at the time and an all-time great in Erik "El Terrible" Morales. Why do you think Raheem beat someone like Morales who, despite being in his prime (somewhat) at 29, had a ton of mileage on him at that point?
Raheem was better than Morales at that time and weight. It wasn’t much of an upset. I’m pretty sure I called that one.
You were one of the few that did in that case. Morales had just beaten Manny Pacquiao. It was a complete shock.
Morales probably had more wear on him than many of us realised at that point. It became more apparent the following year in the rematches with Manny but at the time, Raheem wasn’t expected to give El Terrible that tough a time.
Well the fight was at Lightweight which didn't help, remember he beat Pacquiao shortly before at a lower weightclass, Raheem was also pretty underrated and a skillful fighter. It's a combination of a few things, 1 Raheem was probably a bit of bad style match up for Morales, 2 Morales jumping up a weightclass and he looked flat, 3 father time was starting to catch up to Morales.
I remember Raheem as being an underachiever with management issues. I think there was some bull**** like dodgy reffing during the loss to Juarez prior to Morales but I can’t remember. The fight was at 135 which was a big jump up for Morales. Overall, my feeling is that Raheem underachieved and that his real potential was shown against Morales. I probably was underrating Pacquiao win too.
Morales was just not a lightweight, and showed probably a bit of overconfidence in fighting a fast, elusive boxer-type given how relatively worn and soft he was at that weight and time. Just a bunch of bad decisions made there I think.
Raheem was a very good skilled boxer. Morales showed up but seemed disinterested if I remember correctly. He was never in this fight
