Last weekend, the majority of the boxing world assumed the worst was at hand when Erik Morales stepped into the ring against the wild-swinging and hard-charging Marcos Maidana, who is a top five Junior Welterweight. Morales hadn’t fought a world-class opponent in over three years when he was outpointed by David Diaz in a Lightweight title fight. Furthermore, he retired after that fight, claiming he was feeling the blows worse than he ever had. Some people went as far as to say that Morales wouldn’t go out on his shield, but instead on a stretcher, suggesting a ringside defibrillator would be appropriate. What transpired instead was an inspired effort from a presumed badly faded ex-champion as Morales bravely battled Maidana, a prime contender, from round one to twelve in one of the years best fights. Many saw an effort in Morales nobody thought they’d ever see again, but I saw something different and even more distressing?.this new generation of fighters are nowhere near as good as advertised.
In the end, Maidana-Morales was the kind of fight that we are not seeing anymore in boxing, and that is the passing of the torch fights. Too frequently are fighters being catapulted to the top level of the sport without any experience or adversity that separates them from the rest of the pack, sometimes leapfrogging over older, but still capable former fighters that can tell a fighter more about their progress than their overly-inflated records. The natural progression of boxing in the good old days was that past-their-prime fighters were to give way to the newer generation. They’d be in a win-or-go-home situation that would either raise their stock or anoint a future star. Oscar De La Hoya wouldn’t have ever become De La Hoya if it wasn’t for his wins over guys like Hector Camacho and Julio Cesar Chavez. Evander Holyfield would never had been a star in the 1990s if it wasn’t for George Foreman. Manny Pacquiao’s wins over De La Hoya and his trilogy with Morales blasted him into the stratosphere. This isn’t happening anymore in boxing and it is showing with our stale crop of fighters.
James Kirkland and David Lemieux faced off against fighters who were thinking 12 rounds whereas they were thinking five or less. Both were knocked out by fighters more seasoned than they were, showing no survival skills learned through experience. Zab Judah’s resurgence at 140 as the elder statesman is evident that the new blood isn’t as good as the old. Just look at Bernard Hopkins, who at 46 is favored next month to beat Jean Pascal, a man who is almost 20 years his junior. Juan Manuel Marquez at 38 is slower, easier to hit, and is undersized for his weight class, but is not only beating his younger opponents, but he’s beating them up in the process.
At Heavyweight, fighters like James Toney and Evander Holyfield should be ripe for the pickings for younger fighters who are hoping to fight a Klitschko. Instead of gaining experience and notoriety from beating a legend, regardless of how faded they are, they get smashed into oblivion by the older, stronger, and smarter champions. As FightHype’s very own Percy Crawford has said, “The reason these old fighters are in the game is because nobody is beating them out of it.” Chris Arreola and Kevin Johnson might have learned more about themselves from fights against a Toney or Holyfield than they did in their humiliating losses to Vitali Klitschko.
Say what you will about our veterans of the sport hanging around, scrounging for one last opportunity, but the truth is that whether it be money or pride, they are only around because the younger crop of fighters haven’t matured enough to show them the exit door. The only person that seems to be following the traditional career path of beating older warriors to gain stardom and experience is Juan Manuel Lopez, who has beaten two future Hall of Famers in Gerry Penalosa and Rafael Marquez, which is two more than most younger fighters nowadays.
While our casual fans may not connect to the fighters of yesteryear and dismiss them as has-beens looking for a quick buck, it’s time for all of us to accept the reality that the game, with its current players now, is nowhere near as good as it was ten years ago. As the generation of fighters regress more and more, so too will the interest in a sport when all these older fighters are coming from the woodworks and taking the kids to the shed.
