Mario Barrios has lived to see all five NBA championships won by the San Antonio Spurs but wasn’t even born the last time a boxer from his hometown held a major title in the pro ranks.
The unbeaten super lightweight hopes to end a 25-year drought for ‘The 210’ this weekend, as he faces Batyr Akhmedov (7-0, 6KOs) for a secondary 140-pound title.
“Man, that would be one of the biggest honors, really the biggest accomplishment of my life so far to bring that world title home to San Antonio,” Barrios (24-0, 15KOs) told BoxingScene.com of the opportunity that awaits him that Saturday. “Yeah, it’s going to be an indescribable feeling but of course the first thing is to actually go out there and take care of business.”
Their bout will serve on the Fox Sports Pay-Per-View undercard of the welterweight title unification clash between Errol Spence Jr. (25-0, 21KOs) and Shawn Porter (30-2-1, 17KOs), live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Calif. (Saturday, 9:00pm ET, $74.95 in HD).
Just three other athletes ever to come out of boxing-friendly San Antonio have claimed title status, all taking place within a three-year span during the first half of the 1990s. The late Robert Quiroga became the city’s first champion, doing so at home in a near-fatal June 1991 decision win over Nigeria’s Akeem ‘Kid Akeem’ Anifowoshe. The bout left Anifowoshe with a blood clot on his brain which required emergency surgery.
Quiroga—who was murdered in 2004—managed two successful defenses on the road before returning home only to lose the title to unbeaten Julio Cesar Borboa in Jan. 1993. By then, the city’s next two title claimants were queued up and on the prowl.
Jesse James Leija required two tries to win a 130-pound title, held to a disputed 12-round draw versus Hall of Fame legend Azumah Nelson in their Sept. 1993 clash at San Antonio’s famed Alamodome. The show houses a far more infamous draw that evening, when the late Pernell Whitaker was dealt a horrific injustice in settling for a majority draw in his pound-for-pound showdown versus then-unbeaten Julio Cesar Chavez.
The ship was righted for Leija eight months later, outpointing Nelson to win the 130-pound title on the legendary May 1994 'Revenge: The Rematches' Showtime Pay-Per-View card in Las Vegas, Nev. His win came two weeks after San Antonio’s own John Michael Johnson scored arguably the biggest upset of the year, knocking out previously unbeaten Junior Jones to win the bantamweight title on the same April 1994 card that saw Michael Moorer dethrone Evander Holyfield to win the World heavyweight championship.
Leija and Johnson both lost their titles in their respective first defenses later that year. Johnson suffered a highly controversial 1st round injury stoppage loss to Daorung Chuwatana on the road in Thailand in July 1994, two months prior to Leija dropping a 12-round decision to Gabriel Ruelas in Las Vegas.
The last of San Antonio’s stay in the championship circle came eight months before Barrios was born in May 1995. Four years later would come the Spurs’ first of five NBA championships, the last one occurring in 2014, just seven months into his pro career.
Now approaching his sixth full year as a pro and in his fifth weight division, Barrios embraces with open arms his first career title challenge. It comes versus a two-year pro in Akhmedov, an Uzbekistan-born southpaw who represented Turkey in the 2016 Rio Olympics but is now based in Russia.
Barrios comes in as a slight (-188) betting favorite according to FOX Bet, though he have every intention of winning in far more convincing fashion than the odds suggest. He may not be fighting at home but will have plenty of support on hand to remind him of the cause for which he fights.
“All my family, my sisters, my parents, they're all going to be there and then even just a lot of friends and family that are flying in for the fight,” notes Barrios, who is riding an eight-fight knockout streak, including a two-round stoppage of. Juan Jose Velasco this past May live on Fox. “This has been my dream ever since I first started boxing when I was six years old.
“Now that I’m here, it already feels surreal. But I’m ready for this opportunity, there’s nothing that’s going to get in the way of my becoming San Antonio’s (fourth) world champion.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
