POST-FIGHT RECAP: BARRERA VS. JUAREZ

May 22, 2006 - by Ron Borges

The boxing ring is not a place where a man grows old gracefully.

The real estate that lies inside canvas-wraped ropes is the most dangerous in sports. That is true for the young or the young at heart. For the aging warrior, however, it is a minefield that can explode at any moment, as it did on the legendary Mexican champion Marco Antonio Barrera Saturday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Midway through his defense of the WBC super featherweight title, Barrera seemed in command of the battle ground. Young Rocky Juarez was surprisingly having his moments, even staggering Barrera once with a savage left hook early in the fight that broke the champion's nose, but overall Barrera seemed well in control of his opponent and the terms of engagement.

And then, as sometimes happens in boxing, the high cost of 25 years of fighting, 17 of them as a professional, came crashing in on Barrera and he became an old man in the worst of circumstances. Suddenly he was an elderly citizen being assaulted on a dark street corner by a young thug.

Rocky Juarez had come to take what the Old Man had, in this case his world title belt, and in the final few rounds a bleeding and puffy-eyed Barrera was all but helpless to defend it.

The broken nose and the blood that filled it and often spilled onto his cheek was making it difficult to breath and Barrera several times lost his mouthpiece, his mouth a gaping hole through which he tried to take in air with heavy, gasping breaths. The more he tired, the more Juarez tried to press him, taking his own share of punishment in the process but getting the best of many of the exchanges in the late rounds.

But though an old warrior, Barrera was still a wise one. He knew when he had to stand his ground and fight back and when he flurried he seemed to do enough damage to hold back the tide, although barely. When the final bell sounded, Barrera's face did not look like that of a winner's but he seemed to have put enough rounds in the bank early to have survived the combined assault of Juarez's youth and his weary age. As things turned out he did, but only by a thin mathmatical re-calculation.

When ring announcer Michael Buffer first read the scores he had the fight a draw but 20 minutes later, after HBO's broadcast had gone off the air and most of the crowd of 10, 167 had filed out, Armando Garcia, chief executive of the California State Athletic Commission, announced he had made an error in addition (Juarez's people would charge it was an error insubtraction) and awarded a split decision to Barrera by one miniscual point. It seemed about the right margin between them.

Boxing is a sport rife with problems. All too often, it seems, someone gets a raw deal and most often it's a fighter like Juarez, brave and fighting his best against a champion with a far more impressive resume and greater drawing power but not getting his just due for it. This was not the case this time however.

Though the fight was close, these eyes had Barrera winning, 116-112, although he lost two of the last three rounds here and was clearly a fading champion who best be very careful what he does from here on out. In the end, judge Anek Hongtongkam scored it 115-113 and Ken Morita had it 115-114 for Barrera, although originally Morita's card was announced as 114-114 when the commission thought he had Juarez winning the final round. As it turns out, Garcia said, teh 71-year-old Morita had scored that round even, giving Barrera a one-point victory. The third judge, Duane Ford, had Juarez winning but his card was also wrongly calibrated. His score was originally called 115-113 but was changed to 115-114 for Juarez when the commission realized he, too, had the final round even rather than for Juarez. The irony is that the one judge who had it for Barrera without a math error, Hongtongkam, scored the final round for Juarez.

Not surprisingly, the post-fight alteration from draw to defeat, which did not effect who held the title because Barrera retained it either way, had the 25-year-old Juarez skeptical and even more adament in his belief that he'd won than he felt when he heard the original draw announced.

"I can't believe it,'' said Juarez (25-2), who is now on a two-fight losing streak but comes out of this fight a winner in many ways despite the altered decision going against him. "Who could believe this?''

Anyone who has long followed boxing can believe about anything but in this case most right thinking people understood this was indeed a computation error on the part of Garcia, who keeps the master scoresheet, not a felonious act. In the opinion of this corner, Barrera did enough to squek out the victory any way so it all seemed a tempest in a teapot. What was not was the clear fading of Barrera from the assault of the younger man in the fight's late rounds.

At 32, Barrera (62-4) has fought in enough wars to earn lifetime membership in the VFW. He has bled, been battered and battled back to victory many times. But each time he finished with someone like Erik Morales or Manny Pacquiao or Junior Jones or Prince Naseem Hamed, there was a price to pay. A piece of himself was left behind in all of those rings, dating back to his first appearance at age seven in Mexico City.

Over time, a man is changed by the kind of hand-to-hand combat Barrera has engaged in and that demise first began to show in 2003 when Pacquiao stopped him in 11 rounds by simply forcing the pace up to a level Barrera could not maintain. He railled from that by winning four straight fights, but they included a razor-thin majority decision over Morales on Nov. 27, 2004 and a lopsided one over Robbie Peden, but one in which Peden took him the distance.

Now this struggle with Juarez, who had not looked impressive in his three other efforts against top-flight opponents, including a surprsing loss by decision to Humberto Soto last year after then champion In-jin Chi, who was at the time the IBF featherweight champion, pulled out on Juarez due to a training injury.

Saturday night he was competitive all night long and the stronger lion at the end, as his youth and relentlessness began to break down the oft-retreating Barrera. In fairness to the champion however, he was retreating strategically and often landing the stinging jab that sliced one of Jaurez's eyelids, bloodied his mouth and left lumps on his forehead as he moved. Retreat with guns blazing, as Barrera's often were, is called boxing not running.

When the final bell sounded, Barrera looked relieved, as well he should have, and Juarez anxious. When the draw was announced both seemed oddly willing to accept it, although Juarez insisted he'd done enough to win. That, of course, is not how you get a decision from a great champion with a long pedigree however and he acknowledged as much at first saying, "There were too many times when I was too cautious.''

He was exactly right and it cost him a victory by the thinnest of margins. But now it is Barrera who must be cautious. Cautious of what he does next which, frankly, should not include a rematch with Juarez despite the rising call for it.

"He hits hard and not with just one hand,'' Barrera said of the young challenger who had pushed him to his limit. "With both hands. What shocked me wasn't his power but the speed of his punches, but we had the experience to get through and come through victorious. I have a lot of respect for Juarez. He is a warrior and a tremendous fighter.''

Not surprisingly, Juarez and the people around him hinted that the fact that the fight was promoted in California by native son Oscar De La Hoya, who handles Barrera's career, had more to do with the scoring change than the need for a remedial arithmetic class for the judges and commission staff at ringside. Although unwilling to go so far as to make a charge of tampering, Juarez danced around the edges of it more delicately than he danced around Barrera.

"I'm very upset and disappointed,'' Juarez said after the draw was changed to a win for the old champion. "I'd been thinking to myself that 25-1-1 was okay with one draw with a legendary fighter like Barrera, but to come back to the dressing room and tell me I lost by one point is very upsetting. I'm in California, in Oscar De La Hoya country, but I didn't feel I lost the fight. Getting a draw in California, his backyard, De La Hoya's backyard, you can consider it a victory.

"I still believe I came out with the victory. I don't understand how they could give the fight to Barrera, who was backing up the whole time. I had him going back from the beginning. All he landed was the jab.''

Juarez earned the right to his opinion by the brave way he fought but the fact is Barrera landed more than the jab, which by the way did much damage to Juarez early when the champion used it. He also landed some big uppercuts and more than a few lashing right hands in the first eight or nine rounds, as well as in the final two when they went at each other like what they were - two desperate lions fighting for a territorial imperative.

Barrera won the majority of those early exchanges and held on in the final ones, refusing to buckle. The younger, stronger Juarez won the late confrontations, which tend to stick most in a fan's memory, especially when one looked at the condition of Barrera's left eye and bloody nose. but much had gone on before the great old champion began to fade and it was enough to earn him a victory just as close as the one he was eventually awarded.

But it was also more than a close victory. It was a coming out party of a sorts for Juarez, who struggled to get another opportunity after the loss to Soto last August and a bloody reminder to Marco Antonio Barrera that the boxing ring is no place to look for a gold watch and a pat on the back. When the end comes in boxing for a champion staring at the abyss of staying too long on the job, it is most often a bloody retirement party.

While Rocky Juarez can take from the Staples Center a renewed reputation and the promise of bigger fights to come, Marco Antonio Barrera left with what comes as the winter of a career approaches - doubt about his future and the present pain of a badly swollen face.