Well...who do you got in this great match up? Could Erik Morales outbox or outslug a huge puncher and technically skilled fighter like Marquez? This has FotY written all over it.
Even though he's bigger, Morales might get more than buzzed a few times because of Rafa's power. This fight would be great. I'd favor Erik but objectively I think the opposite would not surprise me, Rafa is a very dynamic offensive fighter.
One-sided war IMO. Morales' power is unearthly, and he had the speed, accuracy and skill to land on Rafa all night. Rafa was very skilled but had some stamina issues, and that's not gonna end well vs Morales' body-work. Morales TKO, whilst up on points, but a tremendous scrap.
From a technical perspective it's an interesting fight, and one that would be good fun while it lasted. I don't see it lasting past about the halfway point , though. Morales had a great chin. Rafa did not.
Morales is one of those guys you'd miss when he retired. Always gave the fans what they wanted. Legend.
EVERYTHING everyone else is saying and, for thought... In the second fight with "Too Sharp" Johnson, Marquez is controlling the show and then all the sudden he practically disappears for about 2-3 rds before eventually coming back on pretty strong and ending it in the eighth round. Merchant brings this up in the post fight interview and Marquez's answer is that he got hurt to the body, presumably by one good, clean, shot. While Morales isn't known to be a huge body puncher, he certainly was no slouch about it (maybe there was no need to talk about it frequently as he was proficient at pretty much everything, and more than proficient at few things?). But what he was known as was a HUGE puncher at super bantam. Wayne McCullough stated in his post fight interview after losing to Morales that he felt Erik was a bigger puncher than Hamed, whom he'd also gone 12 rds with. Point being, Erik banged at 122 lbs. Watching Marquez fall apart/disappear (granted he made it through and impressively. No hate intended whatsoever) like that for two or three rounds with someone close to his own size hitting him, I cannot conceive that when Erik hurts him, and he'd hurt him somewhere along the line, he'd make it/be "allowed" to make it, those two or three rounds to recover against Morales. Last, Erik was just the much, much, better fighter skills wise, and if Marquez didn't have enough power to hurt/get any solid respect out of Erik, that would make it even worse. Watch Morales vs Paulie Ayala for an example of how a situation of that sort plays out
