David Alaverdian will step into a professional ring for the first time in 22 months on February 22 at the Westgate Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. He's scheduled to face Josue Morales in a step-up fight.
Alaverdian is a 31 year old with a record of 8-0-1 (6 KOs). His lone draw was due to- quite frankly- a bullshit decision. David dominated another Morales, Angel Geovanny Meza over six rounds in Mexico, but judge Gary Eder Lopez somehow sided with his countryman, Meza Morales, who has more names than punches landed that night. Another judge, Jorge Luis Romero Cota inexplicably called it a draw. Only Carlos Parra scored the fight accurately, 59-55 for the Israeli from Nahariya.
Josue Morales is a 32 year old from Houston, Texas with a record of 31-16-4 (13 KOs). Alaverdian's fans may have preferred a softer touch for his comeback bout, because Morales knows how to box. In his 52 prizefights, he has never been stopped.
Boxing fans might expect this paragraph to be about the tough Mexican-American's iron jaw, but Morales, nicknamed Zurdo, is a classy southpaw. He's defensively oriented and falls into moments of passivity on offense. He keeps a high guard, expertly catching the opponent's punches on his gloves. Morales usually fights on the backfoot and moves around the perimeter a good deal. He's also adept at using subtle foot movement to avoid punches. All combined makes for a fighter who doesn't get hurt in the ring.
Josue is a true road warrior. He started boxing 20 years ago and turned pro in 2013. Since then he's fought in the U.S., Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua, and Puerto Rico (which is a U.S. territory). He has fought the far better competition as a pro. He lost to Olympian Nico Hernandez and to Jesse Rodriguez when Bam was just a baby long before his face tattoo. Every time Morales has stepped up to a certain level, he's lost by decision. A lot of his wins are against inexperienced opponents, but he has beaten some good fighters as well. And he often fights in the opponent's hometown, which has led to a couple of unfair losses.
Morales started his career with a mediocre record of 11-12-4. Since then, he has gone 20-4, the inverse of a typical boxer's arc. In addition to having more experience than Alaverdian, Morales has also been far more active. David last fought in 2023 while Morales has fought ten times since then, more fights than David has in his entire five-year career. Zurdo is also the naturally bigger man, fighting as high as 127 pounds and campaigning mostly above the bantamweight limit. Alaverdian has his share of advantages though: hand speed, agility, punch and style variety, and power.
Years ago, Morales described himself as a boxer in the hit-and-don't get-hit style who prefers to counterpunch, but he rarely counters. He's more of a your-turn-my-turn guy, throwing 2-3 punch combinations when it's his turn. Conventional wisdom suggests the best way to fight that type of opponent is not to give him a turn and just keep throwing. Alaverdian isn't a volume puncher, he's more of a boxer-puncher, but he can fight in different styles. Changing levels and utilizing his angles are the best chances to get to Morales. With his high guard, Morales does leave his body open at times.
Cletus Seldin once told me, "Rust is real." For Alaverdian, coming off a long respiratory illness which led to a long layoff, he shouldn't press for the knockout. Morales has done just enough to lose against some of his better opponents, so if David stays within himself, he should pull off the best win of his career. Morales will need to up his work-rate and ditch his safety-first mentality to beat Alaverdian and grab the best win of his career.
Alaverdian-Morales is scheduled for six rounds in the flyweight division.