Barrera CLEARLY won the third fight. It was clear as day NO ONE can change that. Barrera won the first Morales the 2nd and then Barrera the third.
Barrera won the 3rd clearly i think it was this fight were the ring wars were starting to take there toll on Erik and also he didnt focus as much on this fight cus he believed he would knock Barrera out after he was destroryed by Pacquaio.
People forget MORALES HAS NEVER BEEN A LINEAR OR UNDISPUTED CHAMPION IN ANY DIVISION!!!!!!!!! Barrera has at 126.
Both morales & barrera have managed to be ranked no1 in 3 weight divisions.... barrera was the no1 122 lb boxer until the junior jones fight morales was the no1 122lb boxer since the junior jones fight until he moved up to 126 & imo edges wilfredo gomez as the best 122 lber ever barrera became the no1 126 lber by beating hamed morales became the best 126 lber by (realistically) beating barrera barrera became the no1 130 lber by beating morales morales became the best 130 lber by unifying vs hernandez All in all, morales beat the better boxers, was more exciting & won 2-0-1 in the head to heads. erik also tried his last fading hand at lwt before retiring. he was way past his prime & could have easily got the verdict. morales tops barrera in most categories. :good
I don't know how anyone could give the first fight to morales.it was like bowe holyfield one in which the loser (being morales) fought great but got clearly beaten second fight was morales. third fight was MAB
Anyone who scored the 2nd fight for Barrera needs there eyes testing, he was soundly being outboxed and when Morales knocked him down with a body shot the ref decided not to count it. Although i would rank Barrera higher
Woulda Shoula Coulda Your avoiding the point that Morales was never a Undispured/Linear Champ. At 122 Bungu had the best case for being No1 (beating Mkkinney twice pre-Barrera) until he moved up to face Hamed. At 126 Morales didn't achieve anything other than having a close fight with linear champ Barrera - it was very close and I had it to Barrera at the time At 130 he purposely avoided moving too until Freitas/Cassa/Corales/Mayweather left and the division was 1 of the weakest. He beat 2 paper champs and then clearly lost to Barrera. His win against Pacman was a great 1 but his next 3 losses were the end. At 135 he took 1 of the weakest paper champions P4P and went close but lost taking a beating in the late rounds - he could have won but beating David Diaz doesn't mean anything anyway Barrera beat Morales 2-1 in most peoples cards and the 1s that counted. Some such as myself have it Barrera 3-0. Both Barrera and Morales would not be as big without each other
morales & mab would have been legends without each other but I agree they are what they are because of the rivalry (the best rivalry in boxing history imo) I give mab all due respect, he gave prime morales his hardest fight (the 1st fight) but I honestly feel that the 2-1 scoreline is rather untrue. I have watched all 3 fights many times & the only clear victory for either man was the 2nd fight for morales. Anybody who knows me knows that erik is my fav boxer but Im definetely not in the habit of making up false **** just to suit myself, if I truly felt that mab beat morales I would write it down, otherwise Id lose any sort of respect Ive managed to build here on esb. I wont argue until Im blue in the face if you want to give mab the 1st & 3rd fights as long as you (as I do) admit that they were 2 very competitive fights that had no real loser & could have gone either way but if any of you try & say mab won the 2nd fight or won the other 2 by a large margin... then I have nothing more to say to you because your boxing judgment isnt up to the standards of the sort of person I expect to speak with on esb. I will say again... morales is a better fighter than barrera & the only thing Id hand mab over erik is longevity which is why mab gets boo`s quite a lot because of his cautious style when the fans know that he knows how to go to war & be exciting but just wont do it. When all is said & done, I think morales will be the 1 with his head held highest havingh no regrets. viva el terrible :good
I have to shake my head at those of you who have Morrales winning the 3rd fight. atsch He was a beaten man in that fight, hell he wasnt even prepared and you could see it on his face in the later rounds.
morales did look gassed early on in that fight & gave away stupid rds, he badly underestimated how good mab could be at 130 but I still had him winning 6 rds so even if you give mab that fight you must realise how close it was, surely. :good
Morales is certainly 1 of your faves. Maybe you weren't biased viewing the fights but I'm sure as a fan of Morales you prefered his work. Thats 1 of the subjective things about judging - taking 1 power shot over a few pitter patter punches, a few accurate over many less accurate blows, a straight over a hook (or vice versa), or simply the assumption 1 fighters work is better. It was a great rivalry - greatest in history? Not in my opinion - Langford-Wills, Ali-Frazier, SRR-LaMotta, Holyfield-Bowe, Leonard-Duran all take some beating. :good
About the three Morales/Barrera fights, I had Erik winning their first two meetings, by margins of 8-4 and 7-5 in rounds respectively, and the 3rd bout I scored for MAB 7-4-1. I agree with Senya13 about the first bout, Marco landed the more meaningful punches that had the more telling effect, but they were few and far between whereas Erik outpunched and outlanded Marco by a margin of about three to one, and did so for the whole bout. The second bout was only marginally closer, and while not an outright robbery I still think Marco got a gift from the judges in the sense that since many people felt he should have gotten the nod in their first bout (which I never agreed with), perhaps the judges were more partial to him in the rematch because of the controversy surrounding the decision in their first meeting. Their third bout saw Erik falling behind early, mounting a rally in the later rounds, but ultimately falling short as he could not overcome the deficit he incurred in the first half of the fight. I agree with those posters who thought that Erik likely underestimated MAB going into the bout, due to his blowout loss to Pacquaio previously. As for who ranks higher between the two men, I hesitate to say at this point because while Erik is now retired (at least I hope he is), MAB is still active and has what could be a career defining bout for him coming up against his conqueror Manny Pacquiao in October. At this moment, I have Erik ahead but only by a C-hair, but that could all change should Marco defeat Pacman in their return. Either way, both men are near equals both in terms of accomplishments and head to head, and I will reserve final judgement until both MAB and Erik are retired for keeps.
