For the first 10-plus years of his sparkling career, there was never any doubt as to how Marco Antonio Barrera was going to approach a fight – with the intent of knocking out his opponent.
That changed after his first fight with Erik Morales in February 2000. The epic bout was a toe-to-toe slugfest from start to finish with both fighters getting badly beaten.
Since losing a split decision in that fight, Barrera has gone about trying to become more of a technician. He never came right outand said it, but it was obvious that he knew his career would not last much longer ifhe continued to get into knockdown, dragout brawls.
He has fared well in 15 fights since that barnburner with Morales, going 14-1, two ofthose victories coming over Morales. But only six of those wins came by knockout. Moreover, Barrera was blasted by reporters for sticking and moving in his second of two victories over Rocky Juarez last September.
Thus, Barrera said last week he will be back to the Barrera of old when he defends his World Boxing Council super featherweight belt against Juan Manuel Marquez tonight at Mandalay Bay in LasVegas.
“We tried to learn to box, we tried to learn to be effective, but it didn’t work,” Barrera said. “So we’re going to have to go back to our roots and bring out the Marco that you’ve all known from the beginning because we weren’t able to learn the boxing technique as well as we wanted.” He learned, all right, that when you are a slugger most of your career, turning into a stick-and-mover doesn’t cut it with the fans, who were not happy with that aforementioned fight with Juarez.
Barrera (63-4, 42 KOs), a former featherweight champion, has been at super featherweight his past five fights. Marquez (46-3-1, 35 KOs) has been a featherweight his entire 14-year career and will be in his first super featherweight bout.
“I feel I am going to be stronger at 130 pounds,” Marquez said of the super featherweight limit. “I feel I have more speed than I did before. Marco is very tough and skilled. He is one of the best at 130 pounds. It is going to be a tough fight for me.”
Marquez pointed out that the move up to super featherweight is only a four-pound jump.
“I have sparred with guys who are bigger, and fought guys who are bigger,” he said. “It’s not going to be a problem.”
