Barrera-Morales III: Reflections of a Superfight.

Erik Morales walked down the steps from the ring to the arena floor of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and saw the Mexican banners waving fervently in the crowd. Scant consolation lay in the knowledge that history will forever remember the greatest featherweight fighters of this era,

each steeped in the proud colors of his native land. If the sight of those colors ever filled him with anything less than absolute pride it was perhaps then, as he realized in his heart that they flew for him in some patronizing token for the loser of one of the greatest fights ever seen. The hour undoubtedly belonged to his nemesis and the new owner of his unified super featherweight championships, Marco Antonio Barrera. Legends and myths are concepts very much alive in the boxing world and occasions such as the third fight between Barrera and Morales lend themselves quite fittingly to the echelons of boxing mythology. Indeed, those documenting the noble art when our time has passed may seek affirmation in the great deeds of the past, seeing fit to analogize that a future pugilists resurrection was one of truly “Barreran’ proportions.

Morales will not romanticize the evening with such relish when boxing has seen the last of his contributions, but it will remember him as having given it innumerable heroic efforts. It was supposed to be the end of a classic rivalry, the final scene of a play often so bitter and cruel but always combatively scintillating. Certainly, there can be no separation of the two warriors, the depth of their accomplishments matched only in intensity by their disdain for one another. Even in defeat, Morales is no loser although he sees no comfort in anything but victory and superiority; defeat to Barrera of all fighters is desolation for Morales the like of which only began to appear on his war-torn features, put there by a decision so narrow and yet so completely devastating to his pride.

Replaying the fight, Barrera’s claim for victory is consolidated. Truly, there was something missing in Morales that seemed to pacify his most dangerous instincts until the seventh round of the fight. Whatever “it” was that remained absent from Morales’ armory until that point plainly cost him the fight and once again, it will be Morales’ search for answers and the replenishment of that missing ingredient that will decide the nature of his return. Incredibly, even without that integral component, Morales is a more complete fighting machine than most fighters in the world today and broken hearted as the fight left him, he will return with the true fire of a Mexican fighter, a warrior, a legend and an irrepressible force destined for greatness.

Of course, the real coup of the night belonged to Oscar de la Hoya who just days previously had unceremoniously terminated his working relationship with promoter and Top Rank president Bob Arum, one that had acquired him truly obscene amounts of money. De La Hoya sat one seat removed from a disgruntled Arum as the central figure of Golden Boy Promotions watching Barrera, the greatest gamble of his fledgling promotional life. There was something conclusive about seeing De La Hoya amid the sheer ferocity of the action in the ring. I felt that regardless of the courage he had shown, the willingness to risk himself if always for the financial rewards others could never reach, De La Hoya was reduced to that of a mere spectator, as uneducated in the nature of what we were all witnessing as was the casual fan.

Then of course there was Barrera himself. A raging, blazing mass of violent fury encased in a body built for fighting below a dead-eyed expression. The deepening battle revealed his many masks of war. An early exchange culminated in a clinch but suddenly, there it was; that expression, a glance so distorted with thunderous menace and if looks were a weapon, one smoldering glare from those eyes would be enough to kill. Later, in the exhausted throes of continual assaults reciprocated in kind by both men, Barrera’s face was contorted with a venomous hate, a shark bathed in deepest crimson, frenzied and greedily digesting the nourishment of the kill.

Morales’ superb fighting qualities and consistent achievements against top-level opposition would ordinarily be enough to secure his place as the greatest active Mexican fighter. Unfortunately for him, and central to his grudge is that his story has been told alongside Barrera’s tale of desperate lows and euphoric highs, a saga that will endure in boxing forever. Being brought up during the Rocky movie era, I often find that many of the quotes from those earlier films ring out as stunning truths in today’s boxing world. Indeed, if I were ever to have been a fighter, I think I could have done a lot worse than to have the guidance of one Mickey Goldmill in my corner. And if Mick were around in this day and age and able to witness Marco Antonio Barrera in action, in comparing him with the abilities of other fighters he would surely reiterate some of those famous words of his such as, “They was good fighters, but they wasn’t killers like this guy!”

Jim Cawkwell can be reached at jimcawkwell@yahoo.co.uk