Columnist Dean Juipe: This fight too similar to last one

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2002 | 9:31 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

It's deja vu all over again, and that's the problem in promoting or building much enthusiasm for Saturday's Paulie Ayala vs. Erik Morales fight at Mandalay Bay.

If you feel as if you just saw these guys fight, you're only partially mistaken.

Two weeks ago at the MGM, two fighters who bear uncanny likenesses to Ayala and Morales -- Johnny Tapia and Marco Antonio Barrera, respectively -- met in a bout that was sufficiently hyped yet painstakingly played out. Barrera, the naturally bigger and younger man, won a rather monotonous 12-round decision with sufficient ease, getting the nod from the judges by 8, 8, and 4 points.

Following a little too closely on the heels of that featherweight fight is this remarkably similar one. Ayala is something of a Tapia clone, and Morales is all but interchangeable with Barrera.

Further, Ayala, like Tapia, is an older fighter who is moving up in weight and -- with all due respect -- doesn't carry much of a punch. After all, in spite of Ayala's 34-1 record he hasn't had a knockout victory since 1998.

Ayala, 32, has a habit of winning close fights by decision, having beaten Tapia and Bones Adams twice while mixing in equally tenuous decision victories over underlings such as Hugo Dianzo and Johnny Bredahl.

Ayala, a southpaw, is a likeable fellow who has had a wonderful career, yet he has inched his way into higher weight categories without really proving he can slug with the bigger guys.

When he steps in with Morales, Ayala will be giving up six years and will be the obviously smaller man in spite of the fact each will weigh 126 pounds.

Morales, 41-1, is 4-0 vs. left-handers in a career that dates from 1993. Like Barrera, he started young and has had his share of wars, but he's taller than most of his opponents and is almost always the better puncher as well.

He and Barrera split a pair of fights, the most recent of which was Barrera's decision victory last June 22.

The featherweight division has been riding a hot streak of sorts, with Barrera, Morales, Tapia and Ayala obviously willing to fight one another, and secondary contestants such as Naseem Hamed, Derrick Gainer, Manuel Medina and Juan Manuel Marquez on a viable periphery. But there hasn't been a real surprise winner in any of their fights since Barrera showed Hamed to be less than invincible in a decision win 19 months ago.

The featherweights are entertaining and they go at it with a lot of heart, but no one's knocking anyone out and that certainly cuts into their appeal and audience. The Nov. 2 Barrera vs. Tapia card at the MGM drew a little more than 7,000 fans and based on projections given Tuesday, Morales vs. Ayala will do about the same in a Mandalay Bay Events Center configured for 8,500.

To take the comparison a step further, bettors were uniformly behind Barrera for his fight with Tapia and they're just as steadily putting money on Morales for his fight with Ayala.

If anything, Barrera's win over Tapia only gives bettors a greater incentive to go with Morales over Ayala.

The parallels between the fights are everywhere and obvious, which certainly isn't ideal. It's tough to sell tickets with a sense of predictability permeating the air.