Erik Morales vs Naoya Inoue at 122, Who Wins?

Morales puts him to sleep

 

Wooooooo Weeeeeeeeee!!!!! That would be something else. I pick Morales. He's beaten and has given hell to a higher level of opposition than Inoue has beaten.

 

Head says Morales, heart says Inoue by body shot.

 

Morales decision, much more proven.

 

Morales speed ? Are you having a laugh? There was a lot of great things about Morales but speed wasnt one of them. Inoue is faster than him. As for the fight hard to say Morales is top five maybe even top three at 122 while Inoue hasnt had a fight at that weight.

One thing is certain it would be a terrific contest Morales was never in a dull fight and inoue always rises to the ocasion...

 

Morales isn't faster than Inoue, not even close. But Morales is without a doubt levels above anyone Inoue has so far fought, it's simply not feasible to favour Inoue at this moment in time when we haven't even seen how he looks at 122. Maybe one day Inoue will surpass the likes of Morales and Barrera but right now he's levels below them in terms of proven ability.

 

Naoya "Monster" Inoue

24-0-0 (21 KO)

• 87.5% KO Rate
• 17-0 (15 KO) in Title Fights
• 138 Rounds Boxed — lost only 6 rounds (officially, on scorecards) in his career for a 95.65 win percentage
• 36 Knockdowns
• 57% of KOs are from head shots
• 43% of KOs are from body shots
• 65% of KOs are with his left hand
• 35% of KOs are with his right hand

Come again?

That's TEN YEARS of ability proven.

 

I'd favour the bigger and more proven Morales at 122, a weight in which Inoue has never fought at. Also Inoue has never beaten anyone close to the level of a prime Erik Morales. Where as Erik Morales has beaten the likes of Manny Pacquiao whilst being past his prime, who even at stage in his career might of been a harder H2H match up than Inoue.

 

Wow what a war this would be! I can see Inoue's quickness bothering Morales, not to mention the fearsome punching power.

One of the problems for Naoya, particularly against Morales, is that he is used to today's type of "you hit me then I hit you" boxing, in which there's not a whole lot of extended exchanges. And for sure there's even less intelligent exchanges, wherein punches were thrown for reasons and according to planss.

Morales was a finessed brawler, which may get a bit overlooked because of his legendary warrior-like fierceness & fearlessness. He was a master of seamlessly transitioning from offense to defense, and visa-versa, as was his arch-nemesis MAB (which was one of the major reasons why their fights were so amazing, in my mind). EM was also extremely adept at controlling the trajectory of his punches, able to change the angle of the punch in motion, while retaining lots of power & accuracy.

As exciting as Inoue's been, I gotta go with Morales TKO 10. It's a shame I'll probably never see the fulness of what Inoue can produce in the ring, he just hasn't had a high enough level of competition.

 

Pacman was pretty raw and unrefined when they first fought...

 

He wasn’t as good as he was at welter but it was still a great and really dangerous version of Pac. Plus Morales was already past it at that point.

 

And still destroyed an ATG in Barrera who was P4P number 3, and almost KO'ed another ATG in the 1st round in JMM. Inoue has not beaten any ATGs or P4P fighters as of yet, although i'm sure he will in the future.

But i stand by what i said Pacquiao even at that stage in his career, with his Southpaw stance, blistering handspeed, and non stop workrate, is arguably a tougher H2H match up than Inoue.

 

Impressive no doubt. But not a single one of the victories were against anyone near the level or skill of Morales. Of all the mythical matchups and there are many, I put this in my top 3.