🥊 Erik Morales names the best fighters he faced in his career

Boxing

Posted by Anthony

May 18th 2024, 5:20

🥊 Erik Morales names the best fighters he faced in his career

Erik Morales was involved in some epic fights in his glittering career.

The Mexican legend retired in 2012 after suffering defeat to Danny Garcia and finished with a professional record of (52-9).

He will always be remembered for his all-action fights against Marco Antonio Barrera and Manny Pacquiao.

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But speaking to The Ring, Morales, had an interesting answer when asked who the best opponent he faced was.

“If you’re talking about the toughest opponent I’ve faced, to be honest, his name was Erik Morales. When I did things the right way and had proper training, boxing was easy for me, but all too often I did not do that. So, as you know, I had a lot of struggles.

“Honestly, I had too many tough fights to say one man was tougher than all the rest. I know fans want me to say that it was either Barrera or Pacquiao, but I don’t see it that way. That’s not how a fighter views things. There are fighters who people have forgotten about or never knew that were the toughest fights, the biggest fights for me at the time I fought them.

“Jose ‘Pepillo’ Valdez was the toughest fighter I had ever faced back when I was nothing. That fight was the biggest fight for me when I was just a Tijuana prospect.

“Enrique Jupiter was the toughest I faced when I moved on to the next level and was regarded as one of Mexico’s best young fighters. I had to beat him in order to show that I was going to go somewhere in boxing.

“Junior Jones was my biggest fight when it was time for me to prove that I could go to the next level, from a champion to one of the fighters rated pound for pound. And from then on it was just tough fight after tough fight.

“My fights with Barrera and Pacquiao are among those tough fights, but I don’t see them as being any more special than my tough fights with (Wayne) McCullough, (Guty) Espadas, Chi, (Jesus) Chavez, (Carlos) Hernandez and (David) Diaz. I’ve had so many wars I forget some of them. You or anyone else can probably put together a Top 20 list of my toughest fights.”