‘Grudge match’ with Pacquiao is Barrera’s final shot at glory

Mexico's Marco Antonio Barrera wants to hang up his gloves for good and he wants to do so a winner. At 6 p.m. Saturday in Las Vegas (9 a.m. Sunday in Manila), he gets his last shot at the WBC International super featherweight title – that is, if its current owner, the Philippines' Manny Pacquiao, would let him. The Mexican contender, now 33, has called the bout – billed as "Will to Win – a matter of "national pride." But boxing analysts see it also as a grudge match, a chance for Barrera to get back at the Filipino champ, for stunning him back on Nov. 15, 2003, with a technical knockout (TKO) in the 11th of 12-round fight. Back then, Pacquiao already had with a string of victories. But he went into the ring at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, a 4-1 underdog against the "Baby-Faced Assassin" – and went out to become the No. 2 choice worldwide as a pound-for-pound boxer, next only to super lightweight champ Floyd Mayweather. Now it's Barrera who's the underdog going against the heavily favored "Pacman," who's only 28, in a 12-round rematch at the Mandalay Bay Events Center. Some boxing writers have been calling it an "epic battle," expecting Barrera to give all as this would after all be his last. Barrera has been so eager to face Pacquiao, even threatening at one time to just retire if he could not get another shot at the man. An Associated Press report on Saturday quoted Barrera as saying about the first match: "It was a total meltdown. I can't really take anything from that fight. It was Manny's night. I've been thinking about that night ever since. All the time I've been preparing for this fight, that's been on my mind.'' For Pacquiao, who is five years younger than Barrera, the bout is a chance to prove how focused he can be despite the many distractions he's had to go through since knocking out Jorge Solis, another Mexican, last April 14 (also at the Alamodome). One other distraction is his mother Dionisia who, though confident of his winning, has urged him to make this fight his last. Pacquiao is widely expected to win the bout, despite his well-documented preoccupations with movies, music and politics in recent years. Barrera claims he's in his last big-money prizefight, content to retire as one of Mexico's greatest champions. But Pacquiao told AP: "I don't want to be in this fight overconfident and give him a chance to win. 'That's why I work hard on this fight...That's his life. If he wants to stop boxing, or if he wants to continue, that's no big deal to me.'' Both fighters weighed in at exactly 58.9 kilos (130 pounds) Friday (Saturday in Manila), with Barrera smiling widely and pumping his fist at the mostly Mexican crowd. His Golden Boy promoters stood behind him – including Bernard Hopkins, who behaved himself on the same stage where he hit Winky Wright with a $200,000 (€141,480) shove at the weigh-in for their July 21 fight. Pacquiao was businesslike on the stage, flashing a V for victory while the fans jeered. Pacquiao has been the scourge of Mexican fighters in recent years, beating Barrera, Erik Morales, Oscar Larios and Jorge Solis while fighting Juan Manuel Marquez to a controversial draw. The matchup is the product of a long-overdue detente between promoters Bob Arum and Oscar De La Hoya, who wrangled over the rights to Pacquiao for more than two years in a stormy dispute involving lawsuits, harsh words and big stacks of cash. Arum retained the right to promote Pacquiao, while Barrera is ready for the final major payday of his time with Golden Boy. ''(Barrera) is going to fight a much better fight, because the first time he didn't know very much about Manny,'' Arum said. ''He went in there feeling he was just fighting some ordinary fighter, and he learned his lesson. He's going to fight a more intelligent fight.'' - GMANews.TV, with an AP report