Who do you favor in this barnburner of a match up between El Terrible and Little Red? Does Morales outbox and outhustles Lopez or can Lopez stop Morales in his tracks with his power and possibly stop him? This is a fight that could really go either way IMO.
Two of my most favorite fighters. Don't make me pick. If you put a gun to my head, I would pick Eric. More versatile, more angles, more diversity of attack. But it only took one swat from Little Red to put you on ***** Street. And he could most definitely finish what he started. So, a begrudging pick for Morales.
It is so easy to pick against Danny Lopez in fantasy head to head matchups. Danny had some defensive deficiencies that automatically make me think he's going to get hit and that is not good against another all-time great. The thing is that Danny had the great equalizer. His power was absurd. He had 39 KOs among his 42 wins. Many of those knockouts were against the top fighters of his era such as Ruben Olivares, Sean O'Grady, Chucho Castillo and others. I think back to a couple of the wars Morales had with guys like Pacquiao and Barrera. If he had gotten in those wars with Lopez, El Terrible would have been knocked out. I don't think of Morales as a defensively responsible fighter so I'm going with Lopez via mid-round stoppage.
Looked up O'Grady's fight with Lopez. Sean wasn't even 18 years old! Why would you put a 17 year old in with Lopez?
I remember when O'Grady came to Los Angeles for the fight. His dad was quite confident he was ready for the big time. He was not.
Even crazier that he turned pro at age 15 and was already 29-0 going into that fight with Lopez. Apparently his father Pat purposefully matched Sean with Lopez knowing that his son would lose in order to get the undefeated record off his back. "I never thought he could beat Lopez but I wanted to get-that 'undefeated' m0nkey off his back. That can put pressure on a kid." His father really screwed him up.
His father said that Sean was too concerned about being undefeated so he took the Lopez fight to get him beat.
Morales was the better fighter. Lopez had the worst defense I've ever seen as a fighter. Morales would beat him one way or another.
This is my pick too although I wouldn’t put cash down on Morales being too resilient. Lopez could put just about anyone away. Morales TKO12.
