It’s hard for me to think about Marco Antonio Barrera without thinking about his adversary Erik ‘El Terrible’ Morales. When Barrera was on top of the jr. featherweight division and suffered his first defeat at the hands of ‘Poison’ Junior Jones in November 1996, it was Morales who seemed to momentarily take Barrera’s place as the top dog at 122 lbs. with a string of HBO televised victories of his own. And when Barrera found his way back to the public’s attention in February of 2000, it was Morales with whom he was doing combat, losing a split decision in a fight of the year battle between the two Mexican warriors. And with Morales making noise of his desire to fight the best jr. lightweights in the world following his recent knockout over Guty Espadas, it seems only fitting that Barrera gets a chance at center stage when he dukes it out with Filipino Manny ‘Pac Man’ Pacquiao on HBO November 15th. With the recent trend of low quality PPV matches being shown, it’s refreshing to see these two slugging it out on regular HBO. In Barrera-Pacquiao we have one of the sport’s finest featherweights in Barrera taking on a jr. featherweight champion who is moving up in weight to stake his claim as one of the best little men in the game. With Pacquiao knocking out opponents left and right, this match-up seems somewhat reminiscent of Wilfredo Gomez moving up to featherweight in his failed attempt at dethroning the great Salvador Sanchez.
On June 23rd, 2001 Manny Pacquiao started getting serious attention when he dispatched highly regarded Lehlohonolo Ledwaba in six rounds to capture his current IBF Super Bantamweight crown. Following that he has rolled off five straight victories, four by way of knockout. His two most recent televised bouts have been short and electrifying. Underneath Lennox Lewis’ one-sided beatdown of Mike Tyson in Memphis, TN, we got to see Pacquiao go to work against former champion Jorge Julio.
Pacquiao started fast, busted up Julio with lethal left hands, and had the night over by the second round. Most recently when people were anticipating Fernando Vargas’ return to the ring against an overmatched Fitz Vanderpool, we saw Pacquiao end up and coming challenger Emmanuel Lucero’s night with one single left cross in the third round. The punch had Lucero wobbling and stumbling to the ropes, with referee Jose Cobian calling a halt to the bout immediately. The bout showcased Pacquiao’s patience and power, but it was obvious that he was yearning for bigger matches, calling out the names of Barrera and Paulie Ayala.
Come November 15th Pacquiao will get his wish and boxing fans will most likely get to see a great fight. Pacquiao brings with him an excellent corner in Freddie Roach and a left hand that strikes like thunder. In Barrera however, he will be facing one of the games most seasoned technicians who has faced the likes of Kennedy McKinney, Junior Jones, Kevin Kelley, Erik Morales, Johnny Tapia, Agapito Sanchez, and Naseem Hamed, just to name a few. This is a real threat for Barrera, but gut feeling says he will pull through against his younger foe.
Pacquiao can crack, but Barrera’s fists have done plenty of damage of their own. Barrera has also found a way to pull through in the clutch many times throughout his career. Pacquiao is a serious test and should be given due credit for taking on the Barrera test, but I feel that he’ll come up just short of making the grade.
