The irony about Erik Morales' win over Jesus Chavez last saturday was that Morales did his best work in the first few rounds, when the two fighters were on equal ground. Despite almost being knocked down in the first round by a right and a left which both landed flush to his face, Morales turned up the heat and floored Chavez twice in the second, who found out that trying to outslug Morales is like attempting suicide.

But in the middle of the fight when Chavez hurt his right shoulder and wasn't throwing any right hands, Morales, who once again demonstrated his tendency to overcommit when throwing his own right hand, seemed sluggish, while a game Chavez was the aggressor. Morales, who said after the fight that he wasn't aware Chavez was hurt, claimed to have broken his right hand while winning a lopsided unanimous decision (I scored it 116-110 for 'El Terrible'). And the scary thing was, this looked like an off night for Morales.

Chavez said that if it were not for his injury, the fight would have ended differently. I agree; if Chavez hadn't injured himself, he would have opened up more, taken more chances, and Morales would have closed the show via stoppage.

On the undercard, Miguel Cotto of Puerto Rico stopped Victoriano Sosa in the fourth round and looked good doing it. A fight with fellow up-and-comer Puerto Rican power-puncher Kermit Cintron would be interesting, but is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Last October, on the same night Erik Morales knocked out Guty Espadas Jr. on HBO, Diego Corrales and Joel Casamayor were tearing it up on Showtime. The fight was so one-sided in favour of Casamayor (despite Corrales scoring a flash knockdown when the Cuban got careless and sloppy on defence) that at the time there seemed to be no reason for a rematch. Casamayor knocked Corrales down twice and executed a flawless performance that expose Corrales as a shot, glass-jawed puncher not quite at the same level as Acelino Freitas, Erik Morales, and Casamayor.

There are those who seem to think that Corrales will knock Casamayor out in tonight's rematch, their reason being nothing more than a "gut feeling".

Don't count on it, though. Casamayor was too technically perfect in their first encounter, and so look for a carbon copy of that fight tonight, with Corrales sprawled out on the canvas a few more times.

Prediction: Casamayor TKO in 7.

On the undercard, Buffalo's Great White Hope "Baby" Joe Mesi will be exposed as just that after former cruiserweight titleholder Vassily Jirov is finished with him. Ironically, the first Casamayor-Corrales bout was the undercard for Toney-Holyfield, another former cruiserweight titleholder facing a heavyweight. And the result will be the same. Just as Toney moved up in weight (after beating Jirov) and destroyed Holyfield, Jirov will outbox and outslug the bigger but far less talented Mesi.

Prediction: Jirov KO in 5.