Marco Antonio Barrera
Professional career
Barrera comes from a family lawyer from Mexico City. Barrera was in 1989 after a 55-3 amateur career at the age of only 15 years flyweight his professional debut. At the beginning of the 1990s, he pushed especially in the super flyweight, but could 1994 not bring the weight limit and decided two weight classes to ascend.
Half Featherweight
In the half- featherweight he knocked with ex-WBA titleholder Eddy Cook in 1994 from his first known opponents. On March 31, 1995, he won the WBO world title against Daniel Jiménez, which is remarkable, as that Mexicans on the one almost always fight for the title, based in Mexico WBC and secondly the WBO in the early 90s in North America is generally considered to be less had. Barrera was at that time only 21 years, but already had 34 victories achieved.
He defended the title eight times successfully, among other things, against Kennedy McKinney, gold medalist bantamweight at the 1988 Olympic Games, but had to against Agapito Sánchez in 1995 for the first time to the ground.
With a record of 43 victories he met on 22 November 1996 on Junior Jones, suffered against the Americans his first defeat and lost his title. Barrera had in the fifth round twice to the ground, so that the result was actually a KO win for Jones, the fight was, however, regarded as a disqualification after Barreras caregivers foul during the fight entered the ring. Even five months later held rematch Barrera lost, this time on points. Although Jones was former world champion bantamweight, but was no longer to be very high after two knockout defeats against unnamed opponents, defeat Barreras regarded as a sensation.
In October 1998, he won back the now vacant WBO title. On February 19, 2000, there came the highly anticipated "hate duel " against his compatriot Erik Morales, the WBC titleholder. After twelve rounds, almost all journalists (Ring, Boxing Monthly) Barrera clearly forward, yet evaluated two judges scored the fight to Morales ' favor, although this had even to the ground in the course of combat. The WBO recognized then the defeat Barreras and led him not to continue as a world champion.
Feather-weight
The following year, Barrera rose in the featherweight, as at the time of the alleged best boxer of this weight class, Naseem Hamed, a known challenger was looking for. In this fight, Barrera punched unusually defensive and countered his opponent consistently. Barrera won on points and added Hamed 's first defeat in his career, from this never recovered.
On 22 June 2002, it came to a rematch against Morales featherweight. Morales was also in this weight class now WBC champion, so theoretically Barrera was the challenger. However, as Barrera was because of the controversial first fight as a " linear world champion," he was the favorite. He won the fight in short supply and this time he was the victory of the judges also awarded. Barrera, however, refused then, Morales ' WBC belt to take so that it became vacant after the fight. He was outclassed by the Filipino southpaw Manny Pacquiao in late 2003 and lost prematurely. He then went on to the semi- lightweight.
Super featherweight
There it was in November 2004 for the third meeting with Morales, he won again and also took this time the WBC title.
In September 2005, he won a unification fight against IBF world champion Robbie Peden, however, this title lay down again. On 20 May and 17 September 2006, he defended his WBC title in two duels against the silver medalist at the 2000 Olympics Rocky Juarez.
Barrera lost the title on 17 March 2007 by a unanimous points defeat to the Ascended from the featherweight Juan Manuel Márquez. While in the seventh round he had a precipitate, it was, however, not considered by the referee as such and instead sanctioned as a reference with a point deduction. A rematch will be discussed, but the U.S. media primarily expect a rematch between Pacquiao and Marquez. The PPV fight had 225,000 customers and achieved 10.1 million U.S. dollars in television revenue.
His last professional fight provisionally denied Barrera on October 6, 2007 against Manny Pacquiao. The rematch against the Filipinos, against whom he suffered his only knockout loss four years earlier, went the full distance of twelve rounds and ended with a points victory for Pacquiao. Barrera then announced his retirement from boxing.
Lightweight
In August 2008, he signed a five - year contract with the promoter Don King and thus returned to the ring. He rose on his return to a weight class and now stepped up to the lightweight. His first fight in this weight class, he played on 7 November 2008 against his compatriot Sammy Ventura, which he could conquer by a technical knockout in the fourth round.
On March 14, 2009, he boxed in the Manchester MEN Arena in England against Amir Khan. The referee stopped in the fifth round during a massive cuts to the head of Marco Antonio Barrera, which was caused by an accidental head-butt in the first round, from. The judges scored the fight 50-44, 50-45 and 50-45 in favor of Amir Khan.
Achievements
- Professional record: 67 wins - 7 losses - 1 without rating
- Place 3 of the best Mexican boxers of all time ( BoxRec )
- March 31, 1995: World Champion WBO Super Bantamweight (8 title defenses )
- October 31, 1998: World Champion WBO Super Bantamweight (2 title defenses )
- June 17, 2000: World Champion WBO Super Bantamweight (2 title defenses )
- April 7, 2001: World Champion of the IBO Featherweight
- June 22, 2002: World Champion of the WBC Featherweight
- November 27, 2004: World Champion of the WBC Super Featherweight (4 title defenses )
- September 17, 2005: World Champion of the IBF super featherweight