What’s left to say about Manny Pacquiao’s demolition of Marco Antonio Barrera last weekend?
Marco looked dead in the water from the moment he stepped into the ring. Was he looking past Pacquiao to a showdown with Juan Manuel Marquez? Was he distracted by the possibility of a rubber match with his old rival Eric Morales? Was he affected by outside events that none of us could hope to understand? No, I expect the explanation is much simpler than that: Manny Pacquiao just wanted it more.
I’m a pretty big Barrera fan. He’s fought a ton of wars over the years, and his twelve round methodical destruction of Prince Naseem Hamed was perhaps the greatest gift a fighter has given the sport of boxing within the last decade. I have no doubt that Marco Antonio could come back from this defeat and bring a much more competitive fight to Manny Pacquiao, just as he did with Junior Jones after suffering his only decisive defeat pre-Pacquiao. He may, however, decide to call it a day and pass the torch, and should that be the case I can’t think of a better man for the job than Pacquiao. Either way, the choice rests squarely on the shoulders of the man himself, a great fighter and a Champion in the truest sense of the word, Marco Antonio Barrera.
