The career of Erik Morales came to a close on a high note, but not as high as he wanted. David Diaz (33-1-1, 17 KOs) won a hard fought unanimous decision over Morales (48-5, 34 KOs) to retain his WBC lightweight title at the Allstate Arena in Chicago.

The fight began with a bang as Diaz was pressing the action in the first round with his power and size. Towards the end of the round, he had Morales rocked against the ropes and was trying to put him away. During the exchange, Morales landed a huge right hand to send Diaz down on his back in the closing seconds. The knockdown immediately changed the tempo of the fight.

A lot of experts predicted a shot Erik Morales would enter the ring, that Morales must have stayed home.

Morales was picking his shots, boxing and landing plenty of hard right hands that wobbled the legs of Diaz. By the fourth, there was very bad swelling under the right eye of Diaz. Morales was throwing crisp combinations while Diaz's counters mostly hits gloves in the first six rounds.

After a sense of urgency, Diaz began to press more of the action in the second half of the fight, while Morales played the role of the counter-puncher. Diaz would trap Morales against the ropes often, trying to wear him down with non-stop punching. Morales would block many of the shots, but some would get through and do damage on occasion.

Diaz began to rally in the tenth as Morales was beginning to appear exhausted. Morales came right back in the eleventh to box Diaz all over the ring as it was Diaz who looked tired. The final round saw Diaz pull out all the stops with punches to the head and body as a shaken up, tired Morales tried to hang on to the final bell. Rather than sit on what he felt was a win in the bank, Morales began to fight in the final minute.

When the final bell rang, Diaz was unloading the kitchen. Morales was so tired that he was barely able to make to his corner. The crowd stood and applauded in appreciation.

Diaz threw more, but landed less and connected at a lower percentage. He threw 733 and landed 161, for 22%. Morales landed 169 of 584 punches for a 29% tally.

The scores were 114-113, 115-112 and 115-113.

Morales announced his retirement after the fight and told the live crowd that he was not going to continue with his career. He lost on the cards, yet many in the arena felt he deserved the decision. There was plenty of boos coming down during Diaz's post-fight interview .

Morales, after being stopped in his last two fights, goes out on a high note and what a remarkable career he had.

At the young age of 21-years, Morales appeared on HBO to win his first major title by stopping hall-of-famer Daniel Zaragoza to win the WBC super bantamweight title El Paso, Texas in 1997. He would go on to successfully defend the belt seven times against tough competition, including Junior Jones and Wayne McCullough.

In February of 2000, he opened the eyes of the boxing world by battling career rival Marco Antonio Barrera in a fight of the year encounter to add the WBO's version of the super bantamweight title to his waist. The split decision win over Barrera, although controversial, put him right on the boxing map.

One year later, he won the vacant WBC featherweight title by winning a decision over Guty Espades. A few months later he would go to war with In-Jin Chi to win a tough decision at the Staples Center. Eleven months later, Morales tasted defeat for the first time in his career when he lost a controversial decision to Marco Antonio Barrera in what was a highly anticipated rematch.

He would rebound from the Barrera loss to beat Paulie Ayala and knock out Guty Espades Jr. In February 2004, he would win a decision over Jesus Chavez to win the WBC super featherweight and put himself in the records books by joining his idol Julio Cesar Chavez as the only two Mexican fighters to win three titles in three separate weight divisions. It only took another five months before he entered the ring again to unify the WBC/WBA super featherweight title by decisioning Carlos Hernandez.

After winning two super featherweight titles, he would return four months later to fight Marco Antonio Barrera in another twelve round classic to complete their three-fight trilogy, which became another fight of year winner (and made Barrera the third Mexican fighter to win three titles in three weight divisions). He would lose a close majority decision that night, but came right back in March 2005 to win a war of attrition over
Filipino icon Manny Pacquiao. To this day, Morales is still the only Mexican fighter to hold a win over Pacquiao.

Shortly after his conquest of Pacquiao, Morales made his first move to the lightweight division against the unheralded Zahir Raheem. Morales underestimated the speed and boxing ability of Raheem, who easily outboxed him to win a lopsided decision. Many experts called the Raheem loss the beginning of the end for Morales.

He would go back to the well in 2006, maybe twice to often, against Pacquiao. He would put his body through hell to make the 130-pound weight limit for the final two bouts of their trilogy. The struggle to make weight was apparent by his sluggish performances in both fights. Many have said that Morales simply got old. Pacquiao dished out two brutal beatings in each of those fights, stopping Morales in both.

He saw Diaz as a way to end his career by becoming the first Mexican fighter to win four titles in four weight divisions. Instead, he came away a winner in defeat by once again giving an impressive, action-packed performance to the boxing public.

On the undercard;

Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. (33-0-1, 26 KOs) stopped Louis Brown (15-3, 10 KOs) after five rounds of punishment. Chavez called out Alfonso Gomez after the fight.

Undefeated super bantamweight prospect Juan Manuel Lopez (18-0, 16 KOs) scored a tenth round stoppage over Hugo Dianzo (31-12-1, 15 KOs). The fight was stopped because of a cut on the left side of Dianzo's head.

IBF mini-flyweight champion Ulises Solis (25-1-2, 19 KOs) knocked out Rodel Mayol (23-2, 18 KOs) in an eight-round war. Mayol dropped Solis in the sixth round, but it was ruled a slip by the referee. After coming close to being stopped in the sixth, Solis landed a crushing right hand to drop Mayol in the eight. He got back to his feet in no condition to continue and the ref quickly stopped the fight.