anxious already about paquiao - marquez III

A friend visited me from Mexico last week. Between trips to Austin and strolls along the San Antonio River, we had occasion to watch a number of old Marco Antonio Barrera fights – the Junior Jones debacles and the classic trilogy with Erik Morales. But it was the first Manny Pacquiao fight that filled me with a dull sense of foreboding about November.

What does Barrera have to do with November? Probably not much unless Top Rank needs undercard filler. What Barrera tells us about Pacquiao’s waning interest in combat, though, might be plenty instructive as we begin to look forward to Pacquiao’s third fight with Juan Manuel Marquez.

First, a note or two about what it was like to be an average boxing fan in Mexico for the last decade. My friend lives in Tampico, Tamaulipas, a city located about 300 miles south of the U.S. border. In the 1940s, he boxed in amateur events as a boy in the Mexican state of Veracruz. He loves boxing at least as much as you do.

But until last week, he had never seen Barrera-Morales I, II or III. Those fights, you see, were on pay channels, and a municipal employee in Tamaulipas’ fifth-largest city didn’t earn a salary large enough to justify such an expense. That meant, in some way, boxing stopped commanding his interest. There were the old days, nostalgia for such scrappers as Rodolfo “Chango” Casanova, sure, but with its accessibility issues, boxing moved to a distant second behind soccer.

That is now changed. Boxing is everywhere on Mexican public airwaves again. But the lost decade of Mexican prizefighting, and its consequences for the quality of product coming out of Mexico today – read: Canelo and Junior – is worth an annual reconsideration or two by American fight fans looking at bandwagons to jump.

The Barrera that fought Morales in February of 2000 has never been seen again. He would go on to teach Naseem Hamed how to box in 2001 and decision Morales in their 2002 rematch, but he would never fight with the abandon he showed in his first match with “El Terrible.”

Seventeen months after winning a first decision over Morales, Barrera would come to San Antonio and get fully undone by a young Filipino prodigy nicknamed Pac Man. With trainer Freddie Roach whispering in his ear about Texas judges – with the ghost of Chavez-Whitaker still haunting the Alamodome scorer’s table (and yes, trivia buffs, Gale Van Hoy was an official judge for Barrera-Pacquiao I) – Pacquiao would make no mistakes in his championship rounds with Barrera.

Fresh as an insolent child after 30 minutes of combat, Pacquiao would hunt and raze Barrera. Beginning in the ninth round, Barrera would glide, retreat and engage only when imperiled. And Pacquiao’s ferocious fighting spirit would not stop imperiling the champion till Barrera’s corner stopped the match.

Four years later, in a fight that marked a temporary rapprochement between Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions, Barrera challenged Pacquiao to a rematch Barrera had no thought of winning. Barrera cashed himself out, gliding and retreating for 36 minutes, engaging only when imperiled and announcing a retirement immediately afterwards.

And Pacquiao let him. Fighting as the favorite in Las Vegas, Pacquiao had no fears of crooked Lone Star scorecards. He did enough to win each round. Drained from making 130 pounds for the last time, Pacquiao did a 12-round dance with Barrera that looked like nothing so much as a business transaction.

What happens, then, if that Manny Pacquiao meets the wrong Juan Manuel Marquez on Nov. 12 at MGM Grand?

To this point, worries about Pacquiao-Marquez III have all treated Marquez’s health. Marquez, great as he is, does not belong in a fight one ounce above the lightweight limit of 135 pounds. Pacquiao is an established, if ever-light, welterweight. Their rubber match will happen at 144, where Pacquiao seems most comfortable.

Marquez has shown us that he, too, is capable of a business transaction. Told by his trainer and longtime manager Nacho Beristain not to fight Floyd Mayweather at welterweight in 2009, Marquez did it anyway to gain a career payday. Dropped early in the match, Marquez fought hard enough to frighten the ever-cautious Mayweather from pursuing a knockout in the half hour that followed. Mayweather could not knock out Marquez, in other words, because he hated the thought of a hellacious exchange.

After losing most every round to Mayweather, though, Marquez showed no regret. On the contrary, he stated plainly that he had nothing about which to feel shame. He’d challenged a much larger man, remained on his feet and cashed a much larger check.

Since then, Manny Pacquiao has shown, in fights with Joshua Clottey and Shane Mosley, that if an opponent is hellbent on not-fighting, Pacquiao won’t force him to do it. The likely beneficiary of every close round, Pacquiao now stays busy, picks his moments, flurries and leaps out, and collects decision victories and immense paydays.

What happens, then, if that Pacquiao squares off with that Marquez? Two words, actually: Uh oh.

We’re readying the boxing rally caps, I know – the now-annual rite of Pacquiao-Mayweather-fight promises will soon spill forth as if on a timer – but it might be helpful to remember this. Whatever happens from here, however easily Mayweather decisions Victor Ortiz in a few weeks, however easily Pacquiao decisions Marquez two months after that, Pacquiao-Mayweather will never again hold the promise it held at the end of 2009.

The Fight to Save Boxing, 2012 vintage, is an event already corrupted by greed and shortsightedness. Let us hope nothing happens in November to cause further erosion of interest.

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