By Vitali Shaposhnikov: It seems like Ricky Hatton might very well be the next possible opponent for Amir Khan, since Khan’s recent conqueror Danny Garcia will be fighting Erik Morales once again on October 20, 2012 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, as reported by Richard Schaefer on RingTV.com (http://ringtv.craveonline.com/blog/174043-garcia-morales-ii-malignaggi-quillen).
“The main event is going to be Danny Garcia, obviously the Puerto Rican from Philadelphia, and Erik Morales, the Mexican. Erik feels that in his last fight, that when he came off of [gall bladder] surgery, he wasn’t at his best. He’s convinced that he’s going to beat Danny Garcia this time around, and you have the classic Puerto Rican-Mexican showdown,” stated Schaefer.
While many boxing fans had expected and more importantly hoped for a rematch between Khan and Garcia, I cannot blame Garcia for giving the much older Morales another shot at his belts, since Erik did much better than Amir in his fight against Danny.
Of course there will always be excuses, and Morale’s tale about his gallbladder removal is yet another one. It is absolutely possible that it did indeed affect his performance, and maybe even prevented him from winning the fight, but a loss to a much younger and hungrier fighter didn’t require any sort of damage control from Morales.
In their last fight in March of 2012, Garcia was able to send Morales to the canvas in round 11, but being a seasoned warrior Morales had not problem getting up and resuming the bout. This time around, Garcia will enter the ring with yet more experience, while Morales will have to depend and hope that time doesn’t show itself during the match.
Truthfully, counting out fighters such as Morales is never a good idea for their opposition, as experience can sometimes throw a curveball at any given time. I expect to see a good action packed fight come October.
Other names mentioned to be pursued for this event were: Paulie Malignaggi, Peter Quillin, Danny Jacobs, Dmitriy Salita , and Eddie Gomez.