Osvary David Morrell Gutierrez Jr. (born January 18, 1998) is a Cuban

professional boxer Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional bouts are supervised by a regulatory autho ...

who has held the

WBA (Regular) The World Boxing Association (WBA), formerly known as the National Boxing Association (NBA), is the oldest and one of four major organizations which sanction professional boxing bouts, alongside the World Boxing Council (WBC), International Boxi ...

super middleweight Super middleweight, or light cruiserweight, is a weight class in combat sports. Boxing In professional boxing, super middleweight is contested between the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions, in which boxers can weigh between 160 pound ...

title since 2021. As an amateur he won gold medals at the 2016 Youth World Championships and the 2017 Cuban National Championships.

Amateur career

During an amateur career in which Morrell compiled a record of 130–2, he won gold medals at the 2016 Youth World Championships, where he was named "Best Boxer of the Tournament", 2017 Cuban National Championships, and the 2018 India Open International Boxing Tournament.

Professional career

Morrell made his professional debut on August 28, 2019, scoring a first-round

knockout A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking, a ...

(KO) victory over Yendris Rodriguez Valdez at the

Minneapolis Armory The Minneapolis Armory is a historic event center and former National Guard armory located in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Built by the Public Works Administration in 1936, the building was occupied by several Army and Naval Mi ...

in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He scored a second-round KO victory against Quinton Rankin in November before facing Lennox Allen for the vacant WBA

interim An interim is a period of temporary pause or change in a sequence of events, or a temporary state, and is often applied to transitional political entities. Interim may also refer to: Temporary organizational arrangements (general concept) *Provis ...

title on August 8, 2020, at the

Microsoft Theater The Microsoft Theater (formerly Nokia Theatre L.A. Live) is a music and theater venue in downtown Los Angeles, California, at L.A. Live. The theater auditorium seats 7,100 and holds one of the largest indoor stages in the United States. History ...

in Los Angeles, California. The bout featured on the undercard of the interim

welterweight Welterweight is a weight class in combat sports. Originally the term "welterweight" was used only in boxing, but other combat sports like Muay Thai, taekwondo, and mixed martial arts also use it for their own weight division system to classify the ...

title fight between

Thomas Dulorme Thomas Dulorme Cordero ( ; born January 29, 1990) is a Puerto Rican professional boxer who challenged for the WBO light welterweight title in 2015. Early life and amateur career Dulorme was born on the island of Saint Martin and lived there ...

and

Jamal James Jamal James (born July 27, 1988) is an American professional boxer who held the WBA (Regular) welterweight title from 2020 to 2021. Amateur career As an amateur James represented Circle of Discipline boxing club in Minneapolis. In his final ye ...

. The event was originally scheduled to take place on April 11 but was postponed due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

. In what was described as a dominant performance, Morrell captured the WBA interim title via twelve-round

unanimous decision A unanimous decision (UD) is a winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts and other sports involving striking and submission in which all three judges agree on which fighter ...

(UD) with the judges' scorecards reading 120–108, 119–109, and 118–110. He was set to make the first defense of his title against Mike Gavronski on December 26 at the Shine Exposition Hall in Los Angeles. After Morrell failed to weigh within the super middleweight limit, reports claimed that he had been stripped of his title. However, it was later revealed that a clause in the fight contract allowed for the fight to continue as a non-title contest. Morrell defeated Gavronski via third-round KO. The following month, Morrell was elevated from interim champion to Regular champion. The first defense of his Regular title came against Mario Cazares on June 27, 2021, at the Minneapolis Armory. Morrell Retained his title via first-round KO. After defending his WBA (Regular) super-middleweight title on November 5, 2022 against Aidos Yerbossynuly, knocking him out in the 12th round, Aidos was hospitalized and put into an induced coma due to a

subdural hematoma A subdural hematoma (SDH) is a type of bleeding in which a collection of blood—usually but not always associated with a traumatic brain injury—gathers between the inner layer of the dura mater and the arachnoid mater of the meninges surrou ...

, bleeding on the brain.

Professional boxing record

References

External links

* Living people 1998 births Cuban male boxers Super-middleweight boxers Light-heavyweight boxers Southpaw boxers World Boxing Association champions World super-middleweight boxing champions People from Santa Clara, Cuba 21st-century Cuban people {{Cuba-boxing-bio-stub