Columnist Dean Juipe: Low-key Morel suffers first loss

Dean Juipe

Thursday, Dec. 11, 2003 | 9:36 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.

One of boxing's longest running champions and admired fighters was beaten last week in a fight that was, for him, typically under the radar.

Eric Morel, the World Boxing Association champion at 112 pounds for almost three full years, surrendered his belt to Lorenzo Parra in a fight at San Juan, Puerto Rico, that was part of a pay-per-view card that headlined junior welterweight Miguel Cotto.

Parra, of Venezuela, won the bout by decision and was ahead by 5, 5 and 3 points on the judges' cards. He's now 22-0.

Morel, a native of Puerto Rico who fights out of Madison, Wis., fell to 33-1 in accepting his first defeat.

"He was not a guy I figured to see lose," Top Rank matchmaker Bruce Trampler said Wednesday of Morel, who is under contract to Top Rank. "I was exaggerating and speaking figuratively, but I told him after the fight that I'd almost never seen him lose a round, let alone a fight.

"I really was in shock."

Morel, 28, may not have been as well known as many of his fellow champions but his credentials were marvelous, nonetheless.

"He may have been a guy who didn't get much recognition and who didn't have much visibility, but he's an eminently likable guy and I always thought he was among the top 10 pound-for-pound fighters in the world," Trampler said. "The truth is, he merited inclusion on anyone's pound-for-pound list."

But Morel has rarely fought in Las Vegas -- only seven times total and only once as a world champion -- and probably was never given his just due.

"He accepted the loss without complaint," Trampler said. "He said he was rusty, that he wasn't in real good shape and that he'd had trouble getting down to 112 pounds, but he certainly didn't look like damaged goods to me."

Morel, who was visited by baseball star and fellow Puerto Rican Juan Gonzalez in his dressing room before the fight, is apt to move to 115 pounds to restart his career.

"We'll see what he wants to do," Trampler said. "I don't think he'll go to 118 but he might be headed for 115."