Morales' underestimating Barrera cost him the rubber match and the trilogy

Interesting post. Morales is my favourite Mexican boxer and at their respective best I would favour Erik over Barrera despite the actual results.

 

Personally my favourite trilogy of all time. I have great deal of respect for Barrera but I am a huge El terrible fan. All time warrior with uncanny feint and laser right hand.
I agree with the OP regarding the result of the 3 fights. Barrera won the first, morales outbox him in the second and lost the third.
Slightly disagree that the reason morales lost was because he underestimate Barrera. I think his warrior mentality plus the bad blood between the 2, got the best of him and Barrera managed to goad him into a war of exchanges. But regardless of the result in the third, I think morales wouldn't want it any other way.

Barrera has all time boxing skill, was more compact and clean with his punches and a little bit faster with his combinations.
He is also more defensive responsible in close encounter exchanges.
Being the shorter guy, the war attritions and in fighting benefit him more than Morales, who in turn have most of his punches smothered.
Morales could have won if he employ the same strategy as the rematch, but he will not be Morales if he did that.

 

Excellent write up. I agree with the robbery trades and i def agree barrera was a new man after jones losses and retirement

What i dont really agree (or more see) is morales not utalising his reach... i thought he always held out that probing jab whist hopping in and out behind it well.

I noted in ALOT of his fights the commentators would praise how amazing morales jab is but also said he does not use it often enough for how naturally good he is at it.


Its a hard triology for me to enjoy. Barrera is and always will be my fav fighter and morales will always be right on his heels in second place..

Its like watching your 2 kids fight.

Based purely on boxing astetics i think morales has one of the most visually pleasing styles iv ever seen (marquez surely has to be number one right? Or finito lopez)

 

He didn't underestimate him.. you're putting too much thought into what he said going into that fight which was " I already beat him twice, I shouldn't even be fighting him a 3rd time". He fought him twice, and as it was he knew what to expect, so to say he underestimated him is just an excuse, because you want to glorify Morales win over a prime Pacquaio. MAB was the better man, point blank period. And styles makes fights, remember that next time.

 

Great rivalry.

 

I believe Erik wanted only to khtfo in the 3rd fight and almost accomplished that. Mab was finished and barely made the finish line.

For some reason I seem to remember having Erik winning the 3rd and even scoring a body shot KD that the ref screwed him on. I'll have to revisit, all I know is Erik came out for me as the better fighter.

Morales is definitely higher on the Mexican greats list, not by much but he's better, for sure career wise and for me personally h2h better

 

That kd by morales was in the 2nd fight. And iv seen it. Its a foot issue not really a fair knockdown.


Barrera clearly made morales take a knee in the first fight late in the 12th tho. He gets him a beauty of a bodyshot

 

Nice write-up. While they had one of the greatest trilogies in the history of the sport, the robberies in the first two fights added a really weird dimension to their matches.

I'd have to rewatch the 3rd fight again, but I always thought at that point in their careers that MAB was just the better overall fighter. When they first met up, Morales was arguably one of the 2 or 3 top P4P fighters in the sport while MAB was making his way back from his losses to Jones. I thought by their 3rd match, Morales was more shot (to put it bluntly,) compared to MAB.

Nice example using Hagler-Leonard, a fight where Marvin absolutely gave away the first 4 rounds. You mentioned it was because of his southpaw tactics, but Hagler was a natural southpaw so Im a bit confused by that statement? Again, I haven't seen that fight in quite some time also, but what I remember was Leonard just outworked him in those first 4 rounds and clearly won them solely from being more active offensively. What I also remember in that match was Hagler than won the next 4 rounds clearly. That was a very odd match and unfortunately for Marvin, he faded too much in the championship rounds and gave it away. Leonard outworked him and he started that classical trend with certain fighters to press the gas offensively in the last 10-15 seconds of the round in order to "steal" close rounds. DLH was a master at that as well.

 

I don't remember Barrera almost being stopped in the 3rd fight.