BIG BEAR CITY, Calif. — After several weeks of often frustrating negotiations, all it took was a face-to-face meeting to finalize the third fight between Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera.
Morales promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank and Barrera promoter Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions were able to come to terms Thursday on a deal for a Nov. 27 fight that will be for at least one of Morales’ 130-pound titles.
The site hasn’t been determined, but Arum said the MGM Grand, which hosted the second of the bouts between the bitter rivals on June 22, 2002, has the first option.
Arum plans to meet with MGM officials today.
“This is the fight the people really wanted and this is the fight the two guys really wanted,” said Arum, who said the stalemate in the negotiations ended when Barrera dropped his demand for purse parity.
Arum said each boxer can make in the vicinity of $3 million, depending upon how pay-per-view sales go.
The boxers’ first bout, on Feb. 19, 2000, was fought at 122 pounds and was a near-unanimous pick as the year’s top fight. Morales won a hotly disputed decision. The second fight, coming two weeks after the heavyweight title fight between Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis, still managed to sell more than 300,000 pay-per-view orders as Morales and Barrera dueled for the title of world’s best featherweight.
Barrera won that fight in a 12-round decision that the Morales camp disputed.
Each fighter considered Manny Pacquiao as a possible alternate opponent and Top Rank was prepared to match Morales with Pacquiao on Nov. 6 if a deal with Barrera could not be reached.
Schaefer said Barrera asked him to look into how Barrera would fare financially against four opponents — Morales, Pacquiao, Mike Anchondo and Scott Harrison.
Schaefer concluded the most lucrative fight would be the rematch with Morales.
“If he fought say a guy like Mike Anchondo, Mike is a big, young, strong undefeated fighter, but not a lot of people know much about him,” Schaefer said. “If he beats Anchondo, most people would say, `So what?’ But a loss would be difficult.
“He understands the financials and he also knows how much the people want this fight. Plus, Marco believes that he has Morales’ number. It just seemed to make sense for us to go this route.”
Morales (47-1, 34 knockouts) holds the WBC super featherweight title and the IBF junior lightweight belt. He will defend the WBC belt against Barrera (58-4, 41 KOs), but Arum is not sure about the IBF title. Robbie Peden is the IBF’s mandatory challenger, and he stepped aside in July so Morales could fight a title unification bout with then-IBF champion Carlos Hernandez.
