By Mark Vester
During a recent conference call with the media, Oscar De La Hoya, president of Golden Boy Promotions, appeared to be leaning towards Marco Antonio Barrera to win the Oct. 6 rematch with Manny Pacquiao.
"Barrera is in tremendous shape. He has prepared for this fight the same way he did for Naseem Hamed and Erik Morales," De La Hoya said. "In both of those fights he went in as underdog and came out the winner. There is no other fighter our there who get up for big fights quite like Marco Antonio Barrera. The question is can he turn the clock back again?"
Pacquiao demolished Barrera on route to an 11th round knockout in 2003. Barrera claimed to have had distractions that led him to lose the fight, this time around De La Hoya feels that Pacquiao may be the one with numerous outside distractions.
"Has Manny been distracted just like Barrera was the first time around?" De La Hoya asked. "He is running for congress in the Philippines, and getting his own TV show is also a potential distraction. Can Manny handle that? These are some of the questions he is going to have to answer on October 6."
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