Danny Garcia (23-0) defeated Erik Morales (52-8) by unanimous decision for the WBC light welterweight title in the main event of HBO World Championship Boxing. Garcia controlled most of the fight, but Morales was very competitive. HBO commentators strongly favored Morales the first half of the fight until it became clear that Garcia was going to win. El Terrible was better early on than later and landed the jab very well including catching Garcia with some left hooks in round five, but Garcia still stole most of the early rounds.
By time the second half of the fight, Morales began to slow down and Garcia was landing cleaner shots. Garcia was able to catch the Mexican icon with a left hook to the chin that dropped him in round 11. Morales did give his opponent a bloody nose and a cut eye, but was never able to rally strong enough. Garcia just seemed to have a little more of everything than him from start to end. Unofficial scorecard from Harold Lederman of HBO had it 115-112 and Fight Night Blog scored it 117-110. The judges scores were 117-110, 116-112, and 118-109. The question now remains if Morales will decide to retire.
The co-feature junior middleweight bout ended with an odd disqualification giving James Kirkland (31-1) the win with Carlos Molina (19-5-2) up by three and five points on two scorecards when the fight stopped after round 10. Even Ann Wolfe trainer of Kirkland stated that she would have liked to seen it continue. Reported by HBO, Kirkland was also not willing to submit to a urine test before the fight and if he did not do immediately after the bout then his purse would be held .
Kirkland was less aggressive than usual early on and consequently was not very effective. Molina was outclassing his opponent and connecting with cleaner punches most the fight while constantly grabbing Kirkland's right arm. By round 10, Molina appeared to begin to weaken and Kirkland was desperately picking up the pace. At the end of the round, Kirkland knocked down Molina as the bell rang. Molina recovered okay, but there was confusion by both fighters about the knockdown on what to do and Molina's corner entered the ring appearing unaware that they were not supposed to. The referee motioned the corner man out of the ring and continued to count then signaled to both fighters that the round ended. After all of that, the referee decided to disqualify Molina for his corner entering which is technically a DQ, but was used with poor judgement here.
By time the second half of the fight, Morales began to slow down and Garcia was landing cleaner shots. Garcia was able to catch the Mexican icon with a left hook to the chin that dropped him in round 11. Morales did give his opponent a bloody nose and a cut eye, but was never able to rally strong enough. Garcia just seemed to have a little more of everything than him from start to end. Unofficial scorecard from Harold Lederman of HBO had it 115-112 and Fight Night Blog scored it 117-110. The judges scores were 117-110, 116-112, and 118-109. The question now remains if Morales will decide to retire.
The co-feature junior middleweight bout ended with an odd disqualification giving James Kirkland (31-1) the win with Carlos Molina (19-5-2) up by three and five points on two scorecards when the fight stopped after round 10. Even Ann Wolfe trainer of Kirkland stated that she would have liked to seen it continue. Reported by HBO, Kirkland was also not willing to submit to a urine test before the fight and if he did not do immediately after the bout then his purse would be held .
Kirkland was less aggressive than usual early on and consequently was not very effective. Molina was outclassing his opponent and connecting with cleaner punches most the fight while constantly grabbing Kirkland's right arm. By round 10, Molina appeared to begin to weaken and Kirkland was desperately picking up the pace. At the end of the round, Kirkland knocked down Molina as the bell rang. Molina recovered okay, but there was confusion by both fighters about the knockdown on what to do and Molina's corner entered the ring appearing unaware that they were not supposed to. The referee motioned the corner man out of the ring and continued to count then signaled to both fighters that the round ended. After all of that, the referee decided to disqualify Molina for his corner entering which is technically a DQ, but was used with poor judgement here.
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