WE OF LITTLE FAITH

Three fights, 36 rounds, and if Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales are willing to do it one more time then I’m sure we would all love to see it. Barrera, having outpointed his bitter rival to go 2-1 up in the thrilling series, said “No problem” when asked at the post-fight press conference about a fourth meeting.

Morales, though, might need to rest up for a while and perhaps come back against someone a little easier. Because, despite the closeness of the scoring in the 130lbs (9st 4lbs) championship fight at the MGM Grand casino resort, Las Vegas on 27 November, Morales, make no mistake, was the boxer who suffered the most in what could truly be called an epic 12-rounder between two of Mexico’s greatest fighters of recent years.

Ultimately, HBO, with the deepest pockets in boxing, will decide whether there will be a Barrera-Morales IV. Until then we have the memory of what might have been the finest fight in the trilogy, one that seemed to be waged to a constant roar from an almost equally divided crowd, which chanted the names of each fighter as fortunes fluctuated.

It was a fight that was one round on one scorecard from being a draw but, despite that, there seemed no question that Barrera had won. He seemed the stronger man, the superior technician, the more effective puncher and had better hand speed and combinations.

Here is what surprised me most of all, though. Barrera was the one who seemed the hungrier for victory. Yes, Morales was game and proud, and he landed punches that might have buckled a lot of fighters in the super featherweight (or junior lightweight) weight class. Barrera, though, fought with an unconquerable passion and desire.

Even in the 11th and 12th, rounds in which he seemed to have been hurt more than any time in the fight, Barrera came back with a fury that made Morales give ground.

The 11,162 crowd and worldwide TV viewing audience saw not only a memorable fight but one of the most magnificent performances in years.

Just think about it. A year ago Barrera looked like a spent force after an 11-rounds hammering against Manny Pacquiao. He had since stopped Paulie Ayala in 10 rounds, but he was meeting a naturally smaller man who was at the tail-end of his career. Against Morales, he was moving up 4lbs from the 126lbs featherweight division to meet a fighter who had already boxed three times in the 130lbs weight class. The betting line in Las Vegas closed with Morales the favourite at odds of more than 3-1 on.

Yet Barrera came out to be the boss at the first bell, dominated the first half of the fight and stood up to Morales’s pressure in the second half.

Even though Morales won the last round on all scorecards he was the one who was being driven back in the final, heart-pounding moments — and this in a round where at one point Barrera seemed on the point of going down. But he sucked it up and stormed back. He was iron-willed and courageous, and he would not contemplate the possibility of defeat.

There were those, myself included, who felt that Barrera might no longer be willing to put himself through a grinding war of attrition, that perhaps his desire had dwindled a little. Not so. Barrera wanted this victory with an intensity that was almost palpable from the closeness of the ringside seats.

And so at the age of 30 he has resurrected his career for the second time after having suffered a crushing loss. Eight years ago he was battered in five rounds by the right-hand bombs of New Yorker “Poison” Junior Jones but fought his way back until, three years and five months later in this same MGM Grand Garden Arena ring, he outclassed Prince Naseem Hamed — another fight in which Barrera was moving up in weight and came in as the underdog.

We of little faith should have known better than to think he couldn’t do it again.

He gave a display of all-around technical excellence, mental and physical toughness and punching power that might have been the most magnificent of his career, greater than even the win over Hamed, because although the Prince was dangerous and landed some heavy hits he never pressed Barrera as seriously as Morales did in the last half of a rubber match that actually exceeded expectations.

Although it goes down as a majority decision I thought Barrera’s win could best be described as close but clear. Las Vegas judge Paul Smith, who scored it a draw, 114-114, really wasn’t too far apart from his colleagues, Jerry Roth, also of Las Vegas, who made Barrera the winner by a score of 115-113, and British judge Larry O’Connell, who saw the new World Boxing Council champion just one point ahead, 115-114.

Morales’s promoter, Bob Arum, complained afterwards about O’Connell marking the 11th round even. If O’Connell had given the round to Morales, as had judges Smith and Roth, the fight would have come out a majority draw, Arum argued.

True enough, but O’Connell gave the fourth round to Morales while the other two judges went for Barrera. Arum didn’t criticise O’Connell’s scoring of that round.

Strangely enough, this was one of those big fights that I found easy to score, in that there was no round where I found myself in two minds. It seemed to me that Barrera won seven rounds and Morales five, or 115-113 on points.

Barrera, as in his fight with Hamed, immediately established his authority, probably taking his opponent by surprise, because he had backed away from Morales in the opening rounds of their second fight, and I think that El Terrible and his camp expected more of the same in the initial stages of the rubber match. Instead, Barrera came out strong and hard at the first bell, taking the fight to Morales, hitting him with sharp jabs, hooks, left uppercuts and right hands, backing him up.

Inside the first 30 seconds, anyone who thought Morales was going to blast right through Barrera this time would have known that they had got it completely wrong.

Although Morales shook his head “No”, the shock of Barrera’s blows and the physical strength of his opponent had clearly made an impact on him — and the fight had only just started. Morales had a look on his face that seemed to convey the message: “I hadn’t expected this.”

Although Morales had a strong second round, he didn’t have it all his own way and a left uppercut bloodied his nose. And when Barrera came forward with a renewed sense of purpose in the third I think that Morales caved in just a little mentally.

All through the fight Barrera seemed the more stable fighter, better defensively and the more compact puncher, with his left uppercuts being especially damaging, although Morales got in some good shots.

Barrera seemed to be placing his shots better than his opponent, and he was clever at covering up and getting low when Morales fired his own artillery. Morales’s long right hands often went over Barrera’s head or hit gloves, it seemed to me, seldom landing with the clean impact that the deliverer intended.

Indeed, all through the fight I had the sense, by and large, that Morales was struggling to hit Barrera exactly right. Meanwhile Morales was bothered by the blood from his nose, and a bruise and swelling under the right eye added to his discomfort as the rounds progressed. After six rounds I thought Morales might even be on his way to getting stopped, but he seemed to find himself in the seventh and eighth, getting his jab working better, finding the range for the right hand, bringing in the left hooks.

He couldn’t maintain the momentum, though. Barrera simply wouldn’t allow it. Barrera’s concentration and commitment rose to a new level as he reasserted himself in the ninth and he was outboxing, outfighting and outwilling his man. As if this wasn’t enough, a right-hand slammed against the back of Morales’s head as he found himself facing the wrong way stepping out of a clinch, which earned Barrera a stern caution from referee Kenny Bayless.

Morales was dabbing at his bloodied, battered nose and at the end of the 10th I made the note: “B. rock solid and absolutely in control.” But then came Morales’s charge in the last two rounds, although Barrera fought back fiercely in the 11th after seeming about to wilt.

Again in the 12th Barrera seemed to sag physically and I thought his left glove brushed the canvas, but yet again he willed himself back into the fray and had the satisfaction of getting in the last punch of the fight, a left hook to the body that seemed to land just after the final bell.

You only had to look at the body language of the two men to know who knew he had won and who felt he’d lost, while their features were a pretty good clue, too: Barrera seemed unblemished apart from some puffiness on the right cheekbone while Morales simply looked beaten up. As Barrera put it afterwards, through his promoter, Oscar De La Hoya: “I just had to see Morales’s face to know that I won.”

It was a huge night not just for Barrera but for De La Hoya and his fledgling company, Golden Boy Promotions. Afterwards, De La Hoya couldn’t resist a dig at his former longtime promoter Bob Arum, head of Top Rank Promotions, seated at the far end of the podium, saying that Barrera “wanted to demonstrate tonight in his performance and because we had everything against us, he wanted to demonstrate that Golden Boy was on top of Top Rank.”

Arum responded: “Well, that’s really class Oscar — you really learned.” De La Hoya said: “I’m just translating, Bob.”

Arum rejoined: “You’re a really classy guy — tell Marco Antonio how much money he’s taking home tonight.”

There was more bitterness when, after the Barrera faction left the room and the losing fighter and his camp entered, Morales’s father/trainer, Jose, spoke angrily, through an interpreter, of referees allowing Barrera to do “illicit things” in his last two fights with his son — “hitting on the back of the head, hitting low, hitting with the elbows”.

Morales, dark glasses hiding the worst of the damage to his bruised and swollen eyes, said through an interpreter: “I’m very proud to be Mexican. Once again we’ve proved the Mexicans are the ones who give the better fights.”

He did not argue about the decision. “I’m not crying — I did what I could in this fight,” he said. He added that his body “did not give me enough until the middle of the fight ... I couldn’t throw punches. I’m planning to move to 135 pounds.”

The suggestion there seemed to be that he had weakened himself making weight, but perhaps he was merely struggling to rationalise what went wrong.

Sorry, but I think that what went wrong was that he was in with the better fighter on this night. Maybe the better fighter, full stop. Certainly on my ringside scorecard Barrera was the winner in all three of his fights with Morales, although he only got the decision in the last two.

It is unfortunate that Morales, born in the roughest part of the border city of Tijuana, has such feelings of enmity towards Barrera, who comes from a middle-class background in Mexico City. I believe him when he says the two can never be friends. But they are now inextricably bound together, for all time, for having given boxing fans one of the most compelling series of fights in the sport’s long history.