Barrera: Just as I expected!

21.06.04 – By Izyaslav “Slava” KozaNovirasputin@hotmail.com – Its not so much that Barrera left since his fight with Manny “the destroyer” Pacquiao, its that analysts and boxing fans just wrote him off. After all, when a fighter takes on an extremely talented opponent like Pacquiao and gets his “head” handed to him by a young hungry fighter with fast hands, that must mean his career has ended, right?

If your not sensing the sarcasm that I laid on thicker than the vaseline on Vladimir Klitschko’s legs, it must be because you either agree with me, or you simply don’t care. Either way, I was pleased to see Barrera perform exactly as I had predicted.

There was nothing really out of place in Marco Antonio Barrera’s latest annihilation of a quality opponent like Ayala. A blind man with a hearing aid could have predicted Saturday night’s outcome. Ayala, the smaller man, with the shorter reach, and badly deficient KO percentage, against the bigger, stronger, and hungrier Barrera. It’s a mismatch made in heaven. Just based off of their performances against each other’s arch rivals (Ayala versus Morales, and Barrera versus Tapia respectively) you could tell where this fight was going. Ayala had no problems in being totally outboxed and outpunched by Morales, while Barrera had no problem doing the same to Ayala’s nemesis Johnny Tapia. This was quite simply a gift wrapped win served in Barrera’s favor.
So why am I so excited?

Its because of the way that Barrera won. I mean, the expectation was that Barrera would do what he did for most of the fight, and that is, box on the outside and record a decision win, similar to Morales’s performance. However, “The Baby Faced Assasin” went one step further. He wanted to assassinate the myth about his demise, in “Gavrilo Princep” like fashion, and that is exactly what he did. The stoppage was a boxing masterpiece, in that Barrera took the time to actually finish Ayala instead of backing off, as if Ayala could somehow make a miracle comeback. I find it strange that Morales couldn’t do the same thing when he was fighting Ayala. Honestly, a fighter who has 12 K.O.’s in 40 some odd fights, doesn’t pose a real one punch threat for that matter. Barrera took wonderful advantage of this. Five straight punches to Ayala’s face keeled him over but left him on his feet long enough for Barrera to throw one of the most forceful body punches I have ever seen. The punch was so intense that the referee didn’t need to take the time to go through the motions of counting, as it was obvious that the only way Ayala was getting up from that was if there was a doctor and a stool nearby. Although it might have been the other two knockdowns that Ayala suffered for the first time in his career, that forced the referee to step in, there is no question that Barrera was very impressive tonight.

In affect its what annoys so much when somebody claims Barrera is done. I mean, is that the only pessimistic option that somebody sees? Maybe Pacquiao was so good that night (which he undoubtedly was) that he made Barrera seem shot and wasted?

What I am trying to say is that it’s not so much that Marco Antonio Barrera returned, its that he never left, and I for one wouldn’t mind seeing a man of such determination and skill, as seen on Saturday night, take another crack at the Phillipino Machino named Manny Pacquiao.

By the way, props to Marco for taking the time to hug Ayala right after the stoppage, class act from a class A guy.

As Always,

Opinions to Novirasputin@hotmail.com