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HBO World Championship Boxing PPV Main Event Recap

March 17, 2007

Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, Nevada

WBC Super Featherweight Championship Match (130 pounds):

Marco Antonio Barrera (63-4, 42 KO's, 130 pounds)(c) vs.Juan Manuel Marquez (46-3-1, 35 KO's, 129 pounds):

Barrera has gained 8 pounds since the weigh in at fight time and Marquez has gained ten and looking at all of the statistics size should play no factor in this fight. Barrera trained for this fight for ten weeks in the mountains of Big Bear, California, a location famous to MMA fans as where Tito Ortiz runs his training camps. Shane Mosley has also recently been trainingand snowboarding in between morning and afternoon workouts in preparation for his most recent fights up in Big Bear.

This fight has been super competitive through three rounds with one judge has it by a point for Barrera and two have it by a point for Marquez. HBO has Harold Lederman scoring the fight and which seems a little lopsided as I felt Marquez at least won the first round even though it was very close. Barrera is out landing Marquez, but Marquez seems to be landing the harder shots.After four rounds two judges have the fight even and the other has the fight 39-37 in favor of Marquez. Lederman has it 39-37 Barrera. At the end of round 5 Marquez has a small cut, barely visible (I actually can't see it) in the vicinity oftheleft eye, and the ruling is that it is caused by a punch. With about 12 seconds to go in round 6 the two start trading wild hooks in the centerof the ring and this fight really gets exciting.

Round 7 is crazy. Marquez just starts to dominate Berrera in the last 1:40 of theround and has Berrera in more trouble than he has beenfaced in years. Then on very wobbly legs it appears Barrera knocks Marquez down onto all fours. Barrera then inexplicably strikes Marquez in the head with a punch when Marquez is down and in a defenseless position with his hands on the mat keeping him up. The referee then does the only thing he can possibly do in this situation and takes a point for Barrera. What is unclear though watching it in real speed is that the knockdown is ruled a slip and not a knockdown. This whole knockdown point deduction thing all happens with under 10 seconds to go in the round, where it looked like the victory in the round for Barrera would simply be to be able to walk back to his stool. The ringside judges all scored the round 10-8 in favor of Marquez in light of the point deduction and slip/no knockdown call. In between rounds they are showing the footage of the slip and it was definitely no slip, or it is a slip caused by Barrera hitting Marquez in the jaw with a beautiful straight right hand. This was as clear a knockdown on replay as it gets and re-affirms the calls by many to institute instant replay in boxing to look at knockdown rulings in between rounds, as this was a huge blown call. The proper scoring for that round should read 9-8 Barrera so that is a 3 point swing against for the blown call even with the point deduction. This is real bad and grounds for a rematch right there. In addition, the commentators from ringside are pointing out the referee was standing at the perfect spot to see the punch and the knockdown. There is just no reason that call should have been blown, and yet it was.

At the start of round 8 Marquez appears to have a cut above his right eye, which may be the same cut from earlier that is now actually visible or a new cut. There also appears to blood on Barrera, but the source of that blood is yet to be determinedin the openingminute of the round. Jim Lampley points out that in the state of New Jersey they have instituted instant replay to aid in the scoring of knockdowns between rounds when available. New Jersey seems to understand things first with smart MMA rules and boxing concepts that are actually helpful, unlike Nevada. Nevada in response to a recent fighter death among a lower weight class fighter in the state now requires its boxers fighting between 135 and I believe 147 (email me if I'm wrong I'll print a correction) to wear 2 ounce larger gloves and as anyone who reads this site knows will just lead to more fighter fatalities. Back to the match where scientific boxing is largely gone and now it is all about the power connects, and Marquez and this is fun to watch. Jim Lampley is continuing to put over the state of New Jersey, as the replay of the terrible call on the slip/knockdown is shown again in between rounds. It is finally pointed out that Barrera absolutely deserved to have the point taken though for hitting a down fighter, so Barrera did make a bad situation worse with his own lack of self restraint.

To start round 9 Marquez' right eye is swelling shut and there is a cut now over his left eye. This match is being contested essentially all within the center of the ring. A fighter getting trapped up against the ropes or in the corner in this fight really hasn't happened more than once or twice. After round 9 they have thrown exactly the same number of punches (529) and Barrera has landed 1 more punch, 204 connects to 203 for Marquez. This fight is very even. This is the commentators point out this is already the most difficult fight of Marquez' career with three rounds to go, but Barrera has been in this territory before and knows how to handle himself here. There is now a cut around the left eye of Barrera and that is the result of a punch about a minute into round 10.

There was a lot of action in round 10 with some good give and take on both sides. Barrera was on the receiving end of the best of it, but fought back with a urgency towards the end of the round. Barrera ended the round by throwing a flurry of punches, which Marquez answered with in kind. It wasnotenough to win the round though as Marquez took it on all the judges cards 10-9. All of the judges currently have Marquez ahead and Barrera needs to win the final two rounds to get a majority draw and a knockdown and a round win to win the fight. Entering round 11 Harold Lederman has the fight scored in favor of Barrera by a point and he also scored round 7, a 10-8 round in favor of Marquez. Marquez is being far more active in round 11 and I have no idea what is going through the mind of Barrera. Even if Barrera believes himself to be ahead, he cannot be foolish enough to think he can coast out the last two rounds and not fight hard like his title is on the line, which it is. Marquez is so much more active the majority of the round it seems like Barrera only decides to initiate action in the last 30 seconds which he did again in this round and it was not close to enough to win it. Barrera's only chance to win in round 12 is to put Marquez to sleep. Barrera's corner in between rounds is imploring him not hold his punches and let them go and repeating over and over with a great deal of fervor"We've got to win this round. We've got to win this round." Imploring Barrera to go all out in round 12 as it is the final round of the fight. Marquez's corner on the other hand was complaining about cheap shots, which is mostly pointless as almost no referee is going to penalize a fighter a point in round 12 of a championship match for an illegal blow without already issuing a substantial number of warnings and a flagrant rule violation in that round. Marquez is again initiating in round 12 with solid punches. Once again, Barrera hear's the banging to signify ten seconds left and gets active. Barrera even came very close to knocking Marquez down and the simple question I have is why didn't Barrera do that the whole round?

The official judges score cards are: 118-109, 116-111, 116-111 making the winner by unanimous decision and new WBC Super Featherweight Champion Juan Manuel Marquez. That knockdown in the end meant nothing in the final scoring of the fight as it appears the judges thought it was a rout by Marquez on his way to claiming the title. Marquez says he would like a rematch with Barrera and gives a very classy victory speech. Marquez admits he was knocked down in the seventh, but points out he was struck while down by Barrera. Barrera's on the other hand is blaming the judges for his loss. Barrera feels the bad knockdown call cost him the fight and that he (Barrera) missed with the punch to the downed Marquez. Barrera also claims the referee had not moved in and called for a stop to the action when the punch was thrown. Barrera is about a minute into his interview and I'm going to correct just a few the things he said that are not true, because if I had to answer everything he said that was not true it would essentially be another fight recap. The referee was touching Barrera's right arm immediately before the punch was thrown to the downed Marquez,and that shows the referee had stepped in before the punch was thrown. The alacrity ofthe referee actually getting therecan be debated, but he got there in time and Barrera was aware Marquez was down, but just angry it was not being ruled a knockdown, which Barrera kind of explains and then backs out of saying. The punch absolutely landed on the head of Marquez and that is not even reasonably contended after seeing a replay. This so far is not a classy defeated champion who is looking to come back speech and retain/grow his fan base. Barrera said he was thinking about retiring this year or potentially as early as after this fight. He is now saying he wants to go on vacation with his family and then he'll make his decision. Barrera says he is more likely to take the rematch because he got screwed by the referee and the judges. The truth is the reason Barrera got screwed was he put it on cruise control way too early and let the knockdown mistake get in his head. He came off as poor loser than as someone who lost on their best night, with the aid of some unfortunate circumstances. (It appears as of now the rematch is on and will happen in September.) The Executive Director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, Keith Kizer, says they may add instant replay in Nevada, but the state wants to see how it works in New Jersey. Kizer discusses how they don't want to take away from the traditional aspects of the sport, which is for referees to make horrendous calls that decide fights. Nevada, progressive, as long as it involves hookers. This was a great fight though and I suggest people check it out as its a free replay as part of Boxing After Dark on HBO which the rest of the show will be recapped in a series of three of these I'm putting out today. HBO Boxing After Dark (BAD) plays all month on HBO and is really easy to find at all times of the day and this match is the first hour of the show.

This fight did 225,000 buys good for $10,100,000 in revenue and these fighters earned every penny.