By Sammy Rozenberg
 
The undisputed king of Mexico was crowned at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Juan Manuel Marquez (47-3-1, 35 KOs) finally showed his full potential by winning a unanimous decision over Marco Antonio Barrera (63-5, 42 KOs) to win the WBC super featherweight title. The scores were 118-109, 116-111 and 116-111, all for Marquez.
 
The fight was exciting from start to finish and lived up to all the hype that was branded on the fight. The two men waged an all-Mexican war for twelve hard rounds. Barrera was able to hold an edge over Marquez, until the seventh round. In the seventh, Marquez landed a huge right that put Barrera in trouble. Sensing a chance for a knockout, Marquez jumped on Barrera with power punches that were beating Barrera all over the ring.
 
In the final five seconds of the seventh, the most talked about moment of the fight took place. Barrera was being assaulted and landed a counter punch that sent Marquez down to a knee. But, as Marquez was still down, Barrera hit him with another right hand. The referee, Jay Nady, did not rule Marquez going down as a knockdown and immediately deducted a point from Barrera, for the punch while Marquez was down.
 
Following the seventh, Marquez began to land hard punches more frequently. Boxing went out the window as both men were unloading all of their power punches. Marquez was able to land better with crisp uppercuts down the stretch.
 
In the final round, both fighters were bloody, swollen and bruised. Neither backed up, they both tried to close the show. Marquez's aggression and consistent power punching were the likely factors that won him the fight.
 
It was obvious from the start that whoever won this fight would fall right in line for a rematch with Filipino sensation Manny Pacquiao. Because Marquez is under the banner of Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions and Pacquiao is signed to Top Rank, making the fight will be difficult.
 
Currently, Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank are embroiled in a very ugly legal battle to determine which company has the legal right to promote Manny Pacquiao. During a meeting with Oscar De La Hoya last September, Pacquiao signed a contract with Golden Boy Promotions. Two months later, Pacquiao signed a contract with Bob Arum, president of Top Rank.
 
Arum claims that Pacquiao's contract with De La Hoya's promotional outfit is invalid because of a clause in the Pacquiao-Morales 3 fight contact, which prohibited the hard punching Filipino from signing with any promoter until a specified time after the third fight with Morales. De La Hoya has always countered by saying that Pacquiao's contract would not officially start until after the Morales event was concluded.
 
As previously stated, the battle for Pacquiao is currently being litigated in the courts and the outcome will determine whether or not one of the richest fights below 147-pounds will actually take place in 2007.
 
If a judge finds the contract between Pacquiao and Golden Boy Promotions to be valid, making a fight with Marquez will be easy. If Top Rank is successful in their legal battle and a court validates their promotional contract with Pacquiao, there is no certainty that a fight with Marquez will ever happen. Or as long as Marquez is with Golden Boy.
 
Pacquiao has a fight scheduled on April 14 in Texas, against unknown Mexican fighter, Jorge Solis. Freddie Roach, trainer of Pacquiao, has publicly expressed his displeasure with Arum's decision of opponent for his fighter. If throw out the fact that Solis has an undefeated record of 32-0 with 23 knockouts, he's done nothing to land himself a major fight with Pacquiao. Solis is also a smaller man, who weighed in at only 125-pounds for his last fight.
 
It also appears that Arum is setting a potential clash between Pacquiao and Humberto Soto, a powerful super featherweight in his stable.
 
If a Pacquiao rematch does not come to fruition, Marquez does have other options. Golden Boy Promotions has plenty of top names in their stable, including WBO super featherweight champ Joan Guzman. If undefeated WBA super featherweight champ Edwin Valero clears up his medical issues within the United States, a fight with him is another possibility.
 
There is always a rematch option with Marco Antonio Barrera and no fan would argue over these two fighters going to war again. Barrera said this would be his last year in boxing and he did hint after the fight that he would possibly retire because he thought the judges robbed him.
 
On the undercard:
 
WBO super bantamweight champion Daniel Ponce De Leon (31-1, 28 KOs) won a twelve-round unanimous decision over former flyweight champ Gerry Penalosa (51-6-2, 35 KOs). The scores were 119-109, 119-109, 120-108, all for Ponce De Leon. The story of the fight saw Ponce De Leon throwing more than 100 punches per round to outwork Penalosa by a landslide. Ponce De Leon threw 1399 punches in the course of the fight, while Penalosa only threw 481.
 
In a battle of junior welterweights, Demetrius Hopkins (26-0-1, 10 KOs) picked up a unanimous decision win over former champion Steve Forbes (32-5, 9 KOs). The decision was very unpopular with the Las Vegas crowd, and numerous ringside observers. It appeared that Forbes would be a close decision winner as he outworked the younger Hopkins in a majority of the rounds. The final scores by the judges were very wide, 118-110 Hopkins, 118-110 Hopkins and 117-111 Hopkins.