Tweet
How important is one title fight in comparison to the whole of a career?
For journeymen and hard-working-but-rarely-rewarded contenders, a title opportunity is invaluable. Despite the condemnation of sanctioning bodies and trinkets, a title belt – even one as gaudy as vending machine ***elry – is akin to the capstone project in an undergraduate’s senior year, the proverbial cherry on top.
But when the fight in concern is the 67th in an already hall-of-fame career, with 12 more rounds added to the 414 that came before, what does the resulting win, loss or draw mean aside from a mark on the ledger?
For Marco Antonio Barrera’s 67th fight, su****ious scorecard tallying errors changed an initially-announced draw against Rocky Juarez into a split-decision victory, with judge Duane Ford scoring the bout 115-114 Juarez, and Anek Hongtongkam and Ken Morita finding the fight, respectively, 115-113 and 115-114 to Barrera. “The Babyfaced Assassin” left with his face swollen and bloodied, but he also retained his WBC 130-lb. belt, his pride and the ability to schedule megafights against an array of possible opponents.
Had the original verdict remained, Barrera would have added a D to his 61 W’s, four L’s and one ND. Yet at 33 years old and with more than half of his life spent boxing professionally, the letter would have indicated a draw as well as the direction his career could go. With the draw’s neutral nature – it is neither a victory nor a defeat – that direction is one of ambiguity. And despite the change to a 62nd W, that ambiguity still exists as uncertainty of whether Barrera’s career will continue as one of destiny or will venture toward its downslope. [details]
For journeymen and hard-working-but-rarely-rewarded contenders, a title opportunity is invaluable. Despite the condemnation of sanctioning bodies and trinkets, a title belt – even one as gaudy as vending machine ***elry – is akin to the capstone project in an undergraduate’s senior year, the proverbial cherry on top.
But when the fight in concern is the 67th in an already hall-of-fame career, with 12 more rounds added to the 414 that came before, what does the resulting win, loss or draw mean aside from a mark on the ledger?
For Marco Antonio Barrera’s 67th fight, su****ious scorecard tallying errors changed an initially-announced draw against Rocky Juarez into a split-decision victory, with judge Duane Ford scoring the bout 115-114 Juarez, and Anek Hongtongkam and Ken Morita finding the fight, respectively, 115-113 and 115-114 to Barrera. “The Babyfaced Assassin” left with his face swollen and bloodied, but he also retained his WBC 130-lb. belt, his pride and the ability to schedule megafights against an array of possible opponents.
Had the original verdict remained, Barrera would have added a D to his 61 W’s, four L’s and one ND. Yet at 33 years old and with more than half of his life spent boxing professionally, the letter would have indicated a draw as well as the direction his career could go. With the draw’s neutral nature – it is neither a victory nor a defeat – that direction is one of ambiguity. And despite the change to a 62nd W, that ambiguity still exists as uncertainty of whether Barrera’s career will continue as one of destiny or will venture toward its downslope. [details]