by David P. Greisman
For Marco Antonio Barrera, the role of the proverbial king of the hill is accompanied by the clichéd loneliness at the top.
He is the best of the junior lightweights, a top-notch champion whose only losses in the past eight years were to Erik Morales and Manny Pacquiao, the second- and third-best pugilists in the 130-pound division.
He is the man who sent Naseem Hamed off toward retirement with his tail between his legs, the guy who inaugurated HBO’s Boxing After Dark with a fantastic fight against Kennedy McKinney, he was one-half of the excellent Barrera-Morales trilogy.
He is in limbo, stuck in the middle of nowhere while Morales and Pacquiao prepare for their Jan. 21 rematch, a megafight bound to be a repeat of last year’s successful pay-per-view.
Barrera tried his hand at the expensive spotlight, the true test of popularity and stardom, headlining twice in 2005 against Mzonke Fana and Robbie Peden. Yet unlike in November 2004, when he and Morales convinced consumers to spend their hard-earned cash, Barrera’s respective knockout of a mandatory and unanimous decision over a fellow belt-holder were shows read about and not seen.
He became words on the page instead of a man in the ring, and in the process was performing another kind of limbo as people wondered, “How low can he go?”
He wasn’t seeking revenge for the drubbing that Pacquiao laid upon him, nor was he allowing the long-avoided Juan Manuel Marquez a shot. Barrera hinted that a fourth with Morales was always welcome, but the duo only hooks up once every two years, and 2006 has just begun.
Instead, the man who had once shown disdain for title belts, dropping the WBC featherweight prize after beating Morales in 2002, decided to honor the greenie that he had taken from “El Terrible” two years later.
Fana was a travesty of the rankings system, a mandatory that became the obligatory lamb led to slaughter. Peden was a former sparring partner, but he was a titlist in his own right, and unification should rarely be frowned upon.
Few watched the one-sided victories last year, what with the attached price tag, but many were marking their calendars for March 25, for the “free” broadcast on HBO, for the proposed bout with lightweight beltholder Jesus Chavez.
It promised fireworks, non-stop action, the type of set-up that people flock to, and in Chavez, Barrera would have a challenge worthy of his pedigree as one of the greatest champions to come out of Mexico.
Yet it was never set in stone, the annoying on-again/off-again that caused the letters TBA to be scribbled opposite of Barrera’s name.
He, and by extension we, deserve better than the uncertainty of To Be Announced, the possibility of a bait-and-switch of a tantalizing title bout replaced by a blasé blowout.
We want our kings to conquer, to face all comers, to line up the victims and knock them down. If he is to be situated atop that hill, he must hold his ground with constant action and celebrate raucously after each triumph, inciting the next brave soul to attempt dethroning. If he is too dominant, then he must move on to the next mountain, choosing competition over complacency. If he is to rule, then he must be seen.
Instead, he sits there, the best, yet untested, confined to waiting for his next conquest, waiting in limbo.
The 10 Count
1. Diego “Chico” Corrales suffered a rib injury in training, delaying his rubber match with Jose Luis Castillo that had been set for the first Saturday in February. While it is disappointing whenever an anticipated match-up gets pushed further into the future, there is a silver lining for both fighters, and not just in the manner of Corrales reformulating a strategy, as BoxingScene.com scribe Dr. Peter Edwards has suggested.
For Castillo, he will still get to perform on Feb. 4, and his opponent, Rolando Reyes, will show up game and looking for victory. Nevertheless, Reyes is an allowable step down for Castillo, whose five bouts since June 2004 came against top contenders Juan Lazcano, Joel Casamayor, Julio Diaz and Diego Corrales. In going 4-1 against these foes, Castillo revitalized a career that had flagged since his two losses to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2002. Yet with the recent lessons of losses by Erik Morales and Zab Judah to Zahir Raheem and Carlos Baldomir, respectively, Castillo must ensure a top-notch performance to keep intact future paydays.
As for Corrales, the delay will hopefully build anticipation for his return, on par with that which pundits were full of from late 2004 into May 2005, when “Chico” was left sitting on the sidelines while Casamayor and Diaz got their shots at Castillo. When 2005’s best fight finally occurred, it was the culmination of what many had been expecting, although there were empty seats in the stands, and more had claimed to have seen it when it occurred than was actually true. Corrales’ win was big, and in a way, signaled his arrival as a star more than his going 1-1 against Casamayor or his fantastic knockout of Acelino Freitas. But despite the controversial circumstances surrounding his October kayo loss to Castillo, some had written Corrales off. The desire for the immediacy of a tiebreaker came more from the fighters than the fans, who had felt it was too much, too soon. When Corrales heals and the match gets rescheduled, perhaps the rumblings will be heard, and the viewers will come for two warriors that deserve the attention.
2. Going through the boxing news can occasionally be like playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Diego Corrales gets hurt, so Jose Luis Castillo is now facing Rolando Reyes. Rolando Reyes may best be known for knocking out Courtney Burton last year, although, to be fair, Julio Diaz, Juan Lazcano and Ebo Elder have all also knocked out Burton recently. Burton, though, will be facing up-and-coming prospect Lamont Peterson in February, and despite Burton’s recent resumé, it is a major step up in competition for Peterson, who will be just 22 when he enters this crossroads match. It is an interesting move when considering that the development of prospects often proceeds quite slowly, but it is also a frightening proposition that Burton could be in for another night of brain-rattling punishment. Burton is only 27 years old, but his ring age seems much older, especially as his lone win in his last five appearances was an absolutely terrible gift decision against Emanuel Augustus.
3. The junior welterweight title fight between Miguel Cotto and Gianluca Branco is a go for March 4 in Puerto Rico, set for the same venue in which Cotto escaped being badly wobbled by DeMarcus Corley last year. While Cotto’s recent streak of title defenses has been entertaining, good television, it appears that HBO’s Cotto-Branco broadcast may compete against Showtime’s super middleweight unification match between Jeff Lacy and Joe Calzaghe. At the moment, it all depends on whether or not Showtime decides to air an undercard, because otherwise fans could watch Lacy-Calzaghe and then switch over to Cotto-Branco. Still, with the way in which corporations and promoters have treated boxing fans recently, the powers-that-be should be making decisions that benefit the health of the sport more than the health of their bank accounts. Showtime’s airings generally come on the first Saturday of every month, and although it is understood that HBO isn’t just going to roll over for an opposing network, it seems as if the March 4 airdate exists mainly for the free re-airing of the previous week’s Shane Mosley-Fernando Vargas pay-per-view main event.
4. Cotto-Branco could be moved one week later to March 11, now that the Roy Jones Jr.-Bernard Hopkins fundraiser for retirement has been delayed and possibly called off. And with no Jones-Hopkins PPV, does this mean that HBO will add an undercard to March 18’s Hasim Rahman-James Toney card, in lieu of the typical free re-airing? When Showtime had a tripleheader on its schedule for last October, fans were delighted. And although injuries forced the card down to just Toney’s science clinic against Dominick Guinn and Chris Byrd’s sleeper against DaVarryl Williamson, it was a noble notion. One-fight broadcasts traditionally leave hungry fans famished, and showing a second or third fight will curry favor, while perhaps helping to draw eyes to unknown champions or future stars.
5. Is Jermain Taylor-Winky Wright the new Riddick Bowe-Lennox Lewis?
6. The Vivian Harris reconstruction project, headed by foreman Gary Shaw, is underway. The cornerstone will be laid when Harris takes on Marteze Logan, a 22-19-2 journeyman with just five knockouts. For years, Logan was a serial “opponent,” dropping decisions to prospects, but in his last two appearances he has come up on the winning end, including an upset of then-undefeated Americo Santos. Despite Logan’s miniscule kayo percentage, there is a possibility that he will not be the pushover that Harris needs to begin making up for his embarrassing loss to Carlos Maussa last year. Logan is sturdy, having not been stopped in his last 26 appearances, and is accustomed to fighting against foes above junior welterweight. For Harris to prevent a repeat performance of the Maussa debacle, he must stay focused and use his superior boxing skills to pick Logan apart, possibly going the distance and getting some winning rounds under his belt, with the knowledge that the flash that leads to cash can come later.
7. Mikkel Kessler dominated Eric Lucas en route to a tenth round stoppage this weekend, retaining his super middleweight title. It has been mentioned that the winner of March’s Jeff Lacy-Joe Calzaghe bout will migrate to light heavyweight, but Kessler deserves an opportunity to face the best for the true division championship, as opposed to picking up the leftovers and contending for the vacancy. Kessler is undefeated and has gone largely unseen, and thus it’s past time for him to remove the label of being unchallenged by the other top dogs in the division.
8. With Zab Judah’s loss to Carlos Baldomir, and legal proceedings underway to force Ricky Hatton to face Souleymane M’baye, will Floyd Mayweather Jr. put his ego aside and face new mandatory Junior Witter? It may not produce the ticket sales Mayweather desires, but Witter’s undefeated streak since stinking it up against Judah in 2000 is impressive, and would temporarily silence the critics, including myself, of Mayweather’s recent choice in opponents.
9. Despite his inactivity, Mark “Too Sharp” Johnson will challenge Jhonny Gonzalez for the latter’s bantamweight belt on the Feb. 25 undercard of Mosley-Vargas, and the match-up has potential. Gonzalez is a young buck that tends to come out firing, while Johnson is a wily vet whose past jaunts to the 118-pound division were unsuccessful. Those losses, though, came at the hands of Rafael Marquez, a pound-for-pound denizen that many have come up short against. Johnson has derailed young beltholders in the past, having outpointed Fernando Montiel in 2003, and if he shows up in his old form, as opposed to just showing up old, he has the capability to do so again and become a three-division champion.
10. Welcome back, Friday Night Fights, and so long to my Friday night life.