Erik Morales Has Surgery, Fight With Danny Garcia Still On For Now

Erik Morales' scheduled January 28 fight in Houston on HBO is still on for the time being, but the WBC junior welterweight titleholder did just undergo surgery for a gallbladder issue in Mexico, so there is some doubt right now as to whether the fight will actually take place, given that it's all of five weeks away.

Morales (52-7, 36 KO) is supposed to make the first defense of his title against Philadelphia's Garcia (22-0, 14 KO) in the main event at Reliant Arena, with the co-feature being a 154-pound bout between James Kirkland and Carlos Molina.

One thing that does give me pause here is that Morales had previously talked about not taking a tough fight with his January date, and that he wanted to take a tune-up to see how he would feel moving back down to 135 pounds, where he wants to chase a fifth world title. A couple of weeks later, the Morales vs Garcia fight was put together, and it seemed a little surprising at the time.

In the photo at the BoxingScene.com link above (the first link), Morales doesn't look anywhere near his fighting weight. Right now, I really expect this fight will get canceled. It's just, you know, it's five weeks away, Morales doesn't look like he's in fighting shape, and he's had surgery on Wednesday.

Hopefully Kirkland vs Molina will go ahead and hopefully (double hopes!) Golden Boy can find a good replacement fight -- this is a situation where an interim (or silver or whatever) title for a Garcia vs Ajose Olusegun fight would actually make sense, but I don't know if GBP would be interested in giving Olusegun that shot either, nor do I know if HBO would be interested in televising that fight.