Jeff Fenech vs. Erik Morales at FW

Fenech IMO.

Not many match him for physical strength at 122-126...He was massive weight cutter and there are question marks over some of his weigh ins, many found it hard to believe he was able to get down to some of the weights he did. But when focused he was also a very hard trainer and put a lot of emotion and passion to his efforts inside and outside the ring.
He had no busniess starting at 118 and coming up to man handle guys like Azumah Nelson and Marcos Villasana..but when at his best he was a bit of a beast.

His hands were an issue but he dealt with this by just overwhelming his opponants, rather then trying to bomb them out. And I think this is where he beats Erik.
He takes Erik out of his favored zone but cutting the distance and not allowing him to dictate the fight from mid-range. Jeff would smother, maul and chop away on the inside and I dont see Erik being strong enough to stop this from happening.

Fenech has a pretty good beard under 130...Morales has what it takes to hurt and knock him out but I think Fenech's defense was good enough to minimize the amount of hard leather he would be taking down the stretch.
Fenech had pretty good head and upper body movement...plus his footwork was pretty nifty. He could dart in and out of range pretty quickly..and his ability to close the distance to phonebooth dimensions was what made him hard to deal with..like all good swarmers should be able to do.

Jeff was a very good fighter...About as good as any pure swarmer you are going to see at these weights..And he beats A LOT of people's favorites from 122-126.

Not going to argue with any one hammer and tong if they pick Morales...He was a great fighter and obviously proved this against generally better fighters then Fenech did. But I just seeing Jeff having enough advantages to upset Erik here.

Fenech mauls and works his way to a well deserved 7-5 verdict.

 

Fenech by decision.

 

I gotta have Fenech by Decision.
Even though Morales is one of my fav;s

Just too much relentless pressure by Fenech

 

i think Morales neutralises Fenech, stops him charging in with accurate power shots and stops him late.

 

What a fight, nt sure about him neutralising Fenech, he made life very difficult for Nelson (flu or no) the first time around, but i see the point, with the emphasis on accurate powershots rather than strength.

I'll pick Morales as well, but really it's a pick em. Morales would lose runds from being swarmed, that is a flat ut given, but he is so game and tugh, plus skilled on offense. Very winnable for Fenech, but the great warrior in Morales makes me want to pick him.

 

morales tries to fire in shots from range but fenech just keeps coming by round three the pattern is set and a war commences. 12 rounds of thunder from both fighters i would take fenech get a split decision .what a huge rematch there would of been

 

I'm going to go against the grain as I feel that Morales was able to throw hard shots on the inside when under pressure, and threw a nice jab to cover right hand he was throwing from mid-range. I say he catches Fenech around the 11th and puts him away.

I do feel Fenech's hands will be an issue as Morales had very good powers of recovery and I feel it would require serious digs to put him off his stride.

Morales, 5-5 going into the 11th, stops Fenech.

Just to go against the grain.

 

Fenech UD.

 

Morales was the far better fighter. I would go with him. In retrospect, I don't think too highly of Fenech.

Originally, back in the day, I remember reading about him and they made him out to be a relentless pressure fighter, like he was Duran or Chavez or something. Before the rematch with Nelson, they even mentioned him as a potential fight for Whitaker, and that he might push Pernell very hard. As it turns out, that would have been a laugh...

Thought he did get robbed the first time against Azumah, but then got blown away in the rematch. He didn't last long after that.
I think his chin was suspect, he was too straight up and easy to hit, I don't think he had great power. He just didn't last too long and only had 33 total fights.

 

His record was short, his power was eh but his chin was fine - above average - I don’t think you can really take that away from him, he just got caught he didn’t have the style to not get hit hard eventually.

 

At 122 Morales showed excellent power by stopping Junior Jones and fought in 2 absolute wars vs McCullough and Barrera, He handled the pressure just fine. He even beat a prime Manny Pacquiao at 126, used his jab well and didn't shy away from exchanges at all. Never dropped in any of those fights. And add the fact that he's a bigger guy than Jeff (5'8 72 inch reach compared to 5'7 67 inch reach).

 

The fans.

 

This sums it up for me.

The great beats the very good unless there’s an edge (very good big man vs. great little man), which really won’t be the case here.

 

The thing about Fenech is he had one of the most sudden and severe drop-offs in form that any top level fighter has had. To go from beating Nelson in every way but in the eyes of the judges to getting kayoed by him in the next fight to getting knocked out with one punch by the feather-fisted Calvin Grove, he had a spectacular fall. Before that, though, there were no obvious chinks in his armour apart from his brittle hands. At featherweight he looked rock solid.

But Morales wasn’t frail either. He could also box, even though he loved to fight, and does have physical advantages in terms of height and reach. He also had tremendous heart.

The question is whether Fenech could outstrength Morales and bully him on the inside. If so, I can see him either stopping him late or taking a very hard fought points win. But I wouldn’t count out Morales fighting fire with fire and potentially outgunning Jeff.

Tough call in a very tough, prime-shortening fight.