Cagey Marco Antonio Barrera vowed that his showdown with Juan Manuel Marquez would see him return to his former all-action slugging style but the Mexico City based WBC Super Featherweight Champion instead employed a boxing approach.
But as the fight wore on, Barrera couldn’t maintain the advantage against his longtime rival and lost his world title and a possible rematch with Manny Pacquiao in the process.
Barrera controlled the first half of the bout with his excellent technical skills, punishing Marquez for every miss with sharp counters that had his Mexican rival at a loss.
However, Marquez was succsessful at drawing Barrera into the trenches and battered “The Baby Faced Assassin” until Barrera dropped his oppressor to the canvas with a beautiful counter hook in the seventh.
Barrera then made the unfortunate decision to hit Marquez while Juan Manuel was down, costing him a point and Barrera failed to get credit for the knockdown.
From that point on it was a classic Mexican close quarters bash and clash with neither man having the edge during many truly thrilling exchanges until the eleventh round.
In the last two frames, Barrera went back to boxing and the contest closed with a furious slugfest during the final seconds of the twelfth round.
When the smoke finally cleared, Juan Manuel Marquez took the scorecards 116-111 (twice) and a far too wide 118-109.
Marquez wins the WBC Super Featherweight title and climbs to 47-3-1 (35) while Marco Antonio Barrera sees his record to 63-5 (42).
