Fighter of the Week: David Morell

On an absolutely loaded weekend of boxing that featured major upsets, heavyweight throw downs, a fight of the year candidate, top-notch prospects shining bright, and basically anything and everything else you can think of. Picking the Fighter of the week was certainly no easy task. However, Super middleweight. David Morrell continues to shine and dominate as he is clearly fast-tracked to a world title shot. After destroying Mario Abel Cazares in one round this summer he returned to the scene of the crime this past Saturday against a very sturdy challenge  In Alantez Fox, who had been the distance with Demetrius Andrade and had quality wins over Elvin Ayala and Marcos Hernandez. He was certainly going to present a challenge for the largely inexperienced Cuban. But he certainly was not as Morrell dominated every second of the bout on his way to scoring a career-best win via fourth-round stoppage moving his record to 6-0 (5)  captured our fighter of the week award, and cemented his claim for Prospect of the Year. 

Morrell had fought just a single round in 2020 prior to Saturday, it was a sensational one scoring a KO of the year candidate over Cazares. Fox if nothing else was going to stand up to Morrell and push him deep into the fight. Morrell had far different plans, coming out like a bull in a china shop, Morrell, a southpaw, backed his opponent into the ropes with a stiff and fired off some power shots for good measure. Setting the tone of the night. Again he backed his man into the ropes with a pinpoint jab. Morrell stayed the aggressor backing his man down with a jab and landing ferocious body shots when he did have his man against the ropes. With about a minute to go the Cuban really stepped on the gas scoring with a left hand that staggered Fox, following up with a barrage of power shots that was capped off with a right uppercut that snapped his head back and left Fox on wobbly legs towards the end of the third. A minute into the fourth the southpaw landed a short left hand that dropped Fox, who courageously made it to his feet. He was immediately met with a straight left that again wobbled him and then threw a barrage of power shots that was capped off with a thudding left uppercut. A few more power shots for good measure bought Fox’s trainer up on the apron to ask the ref to stop the bout. Giving Morrell his sixth win in six fights and his fifth knockout.

The crown jewel for any of the top 168-pounders is obviously a Canelo showdown. While at just 6-0 Morrell may not have accomplished enough to get into the Canelo discussion. However, he is getting closer and 2-3 big wins against increasingly more difficult opponents could put him in title talks in 2022 and finally capitalize on that and secure a Canelo fight by 2023. A fight with Danny Jacobs, should he be John Ryder shouldn’t be far off or Anthony Dirrell, Gabe Rosasdo, or Ronald Ellis who would all make good opponents to put the undefeated Cuban into the title picture. At just 23-years-old he is already headlining major cards, selling tickets and he has made quite a claim to be Prospect of the Year for 2021. The future is extremely bright for the 23-year-old who is on a super-fast track to a world title shot.