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ERIC MOREL-GERRY PENALOSA
The Twitterati seemed to think this was either a clear Penalosa win or a close Penalosa win. My "alternative means" (ahem) of catching the fight sans DirecTV left me unable to view the 9th round, but I had Penalosa winning six of the rounds I watched.
So it's gotta be weird that one of the judges -- Jerry Roth, I believe -- scored it 116-112 for Morel, the deciding card in a split decision where the other two judges had it 115-113 for Morel and 115-113 for Penalosa. Sigh.
Like I said, both men could've done themselves favors by working harder in there. Why was Penalosa so conservative? Morel wasn't hitting him with anything hard -- mainly his jab, occasionally stepping forward with effective combos, but nothing that seemed to give Penalosa's chin much to think about. They swapped round through six on my card, almost all of them close, with the 8th being the first round anyone back-to-back, and that was Morel. But Penalosa finished strong, taking the 10th, 11th and 12th largely because, of the two, he was the aggressor. Morel simply wasn't "making" the fight.
I'm not sure where Penalosa goes from here; there was some talk of him retiring if he didn't win this fight, although the closeness of it -- and the general sense that he probably deserved the victory -- may give him a "grandfather" clause. Yes, I meant that as an old person joke, but Penalosa, at 38, is still a viable fighter. He had an opponent in front of him who was a style nightmare for him, given his history against boxer-mover types, and he nearly won it. And he did it despite two bad cuts from head butts.
Morel is once again set up to fight Montiel, as this was a fight for the interim version of the belt Montiel holds. Montiel-Morel has been scheduled, postponed and talked about for going on a zillion years, so we'll see if it happens, especially since Montiel hasn't mentioned Morel as the man he wants to fight next.
ERIC MOREL-GERRY PENALOSA
The Twitterati seemed to think this was either a clear Penalosa win or a close Penalosa win. My "alternative means" (ahem) of catching the fight sans DirecTV left me unable to view the 9th round, but I had Penalosa winning six of the rounds I watched.
So it's gotta be weird that one of the judges -- Jerry Roth, I believe -- scored it 116-112 for Morel, the deciding card in a split decision where the other two judges had it 115-113 for Morel and 115-113 for Penalosa. Sigh.
Like I said, both men could've done themselves favors by working harder in there. Why was Penalosa so conservative? Morel wasn't hitting him with anything hard -- mainly his jab, occasionally stepping forward with effective combos, but nothing that seemed to give Penalosa's chin much to think about. They swapped round through six on my card, almost all of them close, with the 8th being the first round anyone back-to-back, and that was Morel. But Penalosa finished strong, taking the 10th, 11th and 12th largely because, of the two, he was the aggressor. Morel simply wasn't "making" the fight.
I'm not sure where Penalosa goes from here; there was some talk of him retiring if he didn't win this fight, although the closeness of it -- and the general sense that he probably deserved the victory -- may give him a "grandfather" clause. Yes, I meant that as an old person joke, but Penalosa, at 38, is still a viable fighter. He had an opponent in front of him who was a style nightmare for him, given his history against boxer-mover types, and he nearly won it. And he did it despite two bad cuts from head butts.
Morel is once again set up to fight Montiel, as this was a fight for the interim version of the belt Montiel holds. Montiel-Morel has been scheduled, postponed and talked about for going on a zillion years, so we'll see if it happens, especially since Montiel hasn't mentioned Morel as the man he wants to fight next.
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