The last time we saw Marco Antonio Barrera in the ring, he was besting arch-rival Erik Morales in what was not only the consensus 2004 Fight of the Year, but inarguably one of the greatest prizefights ever witnessed.
Incredibly, Morales rebounded from that by taking on Manny Pacquiao, who had beaten Barrera in 2003, and, two weeks ago, emerging the victor over twelve rounds in yet another early Fight of the Year candidate.
Not to be outdone, Barrera returns to the ring on Saturday in El Paso, headlining a pay-per-view card against the always dangerous, er, Mzonke Fana.
Fana scarcely appears to belong in the same arena as Barrera, let alone the same ring. On the only previous occasion he fought outside his native South Africa, he traveled to England and dropped a twelve-round decision to the unremarkable Dean Pithie. Three fights earlier, he had lost to the even more anonymous Mkuseli Kondile. That isn?t quite the same as Erik Morales and Manny Pacquiao; although, to be fair, those defeats came relatively early in Fana?s career, and the more recent one was over five years ago. Since then, the South African has mostly feasted on unknown quantities, more often than not on the home soil of Khayelitsha township in Cape Town, where he lives in a shack, but he does have two vaguely familiar and credible names on his resume.
In 2003, he scored a fourth-round TKO over Hungarian Laszlo Bognar, a fringe contender whose most notable victory was a 2001 stoppage win over Briton Michael Gomez, a fight that was televised in the United States on Showtime. It was to be Bognar?s only moment in the sun, however, as Gomez beat him in a rematch, Scottish prospect Alex Arthur knocked him out in the third round, before Fana got to him.
In his most recent bout, on May 28 last year, Fana traveled all the way from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and in front of an excited crowd at the Orlando Community Hall in Soweto township, eked out a close and controversial twelve-round split decision victory over previously undefeated Filipino Randy Suico. Suico?s punches were harder and more effective?Fana went down in the second and fourth rounds, and was forced to hang on for dear life in the twelfth?but the South African was busier, landing his light jab in Suico?s face repeatedly.
Fana has little power?just eight stoppages in his 22 wins, and all of them at 126 lbs., one division down from the weight at which he will be fighting Barrera?and Suico is not the only opponent to send him to the canvas. It seems massively improbable that Barrera will encounter even the slightest difficulty in disposing of him relatively swiftly.
Which raises the question: why has this fight been made?
One reason is that, frankly, outside of the occasional truly big fight, Barrera as of late generally been quite content to dominate overmatched opponents. Between the second Morales fight and the Pacquiao contest, he overwhelmed over-the-hill Johnny Tapia and Kevin Kelley, and after losing to Pacquiao, he rebounded by drubbing Paulie Ayala, who had already been all but finished as a top-level fighter by a pounding he had received from Morales a year earlier.
Barrera has an extraordinary capacity to rise to the occasion against the most dangerous of foes (especially if that foe is Morales); but, unlike his Tijuanan nemesis, he no longer seems to possess the burning desire to constantly test himself against legitimate challenger after legitimate challenger. Fighting Fana is simply a continuation of that trend.
Of course, Fana is also the mandatory contender for the WBC super featherweight championship that Barrera ripped from Morales last November. Barrera is hardly the first superstar pugilist to face a nondescript mandatory, and one could scarcely blame the man for not wanting to be stripped of such a hard-earned title. Except that, more than any other boxer in recent memory, Barrera has actively spurned the belts of alphabet organizations, and so pleading that ?the WBC made me do it? seems a specious argument.
But there is method to the alphabet-mandated madness. Barrera may not much care for sanctioning bodies? trinkets and baubles, but he recognizes that other fighters do. Especially the WBC belt. Especially Mexicans. Especially one particular Mexican.
If marking time against the likes of Mzonke Fana is what it takes for Barrera to keep the WBC belt, and if keeping the WBC belt is what it takes to lure Morales into the ring one more time, then so be it. The payoff will be more than worth the wait.
