By Ronnie Nathanielsz
A glaring anomaly has surfaced following Ciso “Kid Terrible” Morales’ crushing first round knockout at the hands of WBO bantamweight champion Fernando “Cochulito” Montiel in the “Pinoy Power III/Latin Fury 13” fight card telecast by the giant broadcast network ABS-CBN from the Las Vegas Hilton last February 13.
Morales in five fights prior to the title clash against Montiel had fought as a super bantamweight. In fact he won the vacant WBO Oriental super bantamweight title and the vacant WBO Asia Pacific crown with a twelve round unanimous but close decision over Indonesia’s Marangin Marbun in Tubod, Lanao del Norte on February 9, 2008
In four succeeding fights Morales fought as a super bantamweight and in his last fight prior to the Montiel title showdown against Miguel Angel Gonzalez Piedras at Casino Rama in Ontario where he won a majority decision, Morales weighed in at 122 pounds, the super bantamweight limit.
Inexplicably, the WBO rated Morales No. 5 in the bantamweight division enabling him to land the ill-fated title shot at Montiel.
Despite several emails the head of the World Boxing Organization Asia Pacific region Leon Panoncillo hasn’t responded to our inquiry as to how “Kid Terrible” Morales could have been rated No. 5 bantamweight in the world when he had been fighting as a super bantamweight throughout 2008 and 2009.
We have also discovered that Ciso Morales who was born in Talibon, Bohol was initially registered as Hammer Morales according to Games and Amusements Board boxing division official Tony Comia although boxrec.com records list him as Hammer Rosales.
GAB records show that the fighter named Ciso Morales won his first bout against Ramil Nunez on February 16, 2007 in Cagayan de Oro City.
We were also informed that the Hammer Rosales listed in the boxrec.com archives fought only once on July 13, 2006 in Talibon, Bohol and was knocked out in the second round by Rey Las Pinas and that the Talibon-born fighter subsequently fought under the name Ciso Morales who entered the ring for the Montiel fight undefeated with a record of 14-0 with 8 knockouts.
The mismatch of Morales which was an embarrassment to the Philippines was followed by another crushing loss by “Marvelous” Marvin Sonsona who lost his super flyweight title when he couldn’t make the weight and was held to a controversial draw by journeyman Alejandro Hernandez.
A couple of months later Sonsona faced undefeated, hard-hitting Wilfredo Vazquez Jr who had a record of 17-0-1 with 14 knockouts for the WBO super bantamweight title and was knocked out in the fourth round. Again, the WBO sanctioned a former super flyweight champion moving up two weight divisions without a single fight at the higher weight to fight for the super bantamweight title.
