Boxing - The Sweet Science

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Barrera, Morales seek title, bragging rights

06/19/2002
By Dan Rafael, USA TODAY


LAS VEGAS — There is more on the line for Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales in their rematch than simply earning recognition as the world's best featherweight.

Saturday night's championship fight at the MGM Grand (9 ET, HBO PPV, $39.95) also is the stage for Barrera (No. 1 USA TODAY, 54-3, 39 KOs) or Morales (No. 2, 41-0, 31 KOs) to lay claim as Mexico's best current fighter and cement a place as one of the tradition-rich nation's legendary boxers.

"The winner of this fight will be the next Mexican superstar and close the gap with Julio Cesar Chavez as Mexico's all-time best," Morales' manager, Fernando Beltran, said following Wednesday's final news conference.

Ricardo Jimenez, a former sports editor for Spanish language newspaper La Opinion and now a publicist for Morales promoter Top Rank, said the winner will join a pantheon of Mexican fighters that includes Ruben Olivares, Carlos Zarate, Salvador Sanchez, Ricardo Lopez and Chavez.

"No one is going to beat out Chavez," Jimenez said.

"To get to Chavez's level would take a lot. But whoever wins this is going to be close."

Morales-Barrera II is huge in Mexico and in the USA's Hispanic community, especially now that Mexico is out of soccer's World Cup. The fight leads sports sections and newscasts throughout Mexico and Spanish-language outlets in the USA.

In addition to an expected sellout at the 15,000-seat Grand Garden Arena, HBO PPV executives project the fight to be the highest grossing featherweight bout, surpassing the $13 million generated from 320,000 pay-per-view buys for Barrera's victory against Naseem Hamed in April 2001.

"This is the biggest fight in Mexican history," Jimenez said. "Chavez never fought anyone at his best. He fought Mexicans, but never good Mexicans. These guys are the best two Mexicans fighting each other."

The simmering hostility between Morales and Barrera adds to the already high stakes, but the heated rivalry has far deeper roots than their exciting toe-to-toe battle two years ago, in which Morales claimed a controversial decision.

The rivalry stems from a geographic and cultural difference between them. Morales grew up poor in Tijuana, and Barrera comes from a much wealthier, professional family in Mexico City.

"A lot of people from Mexico City have an attitude of superiority over people from the rest of the country, especially the people from the border towns (such as Tijuana)," Jimenez said. "They believe that if you live outside Mexico City you are not as sophisticated as them or as good as them.

"It's the same with the fighters. Barrera has that kind of attitude. Before the first fight he said things like 'Nothing good ever came out of the border towns. They just come down from the hills. They have no shoes, no nothing.' "

Morales does not hide his dislike for Barrera or for Mexico City.

"People from Mexico City are no doubt the most hated people in Mexico," he said. "They think they are better than everybody. They think they know it all and have it all."

Although Barrera has called Morales an "Indian" and insulted his roots, he tried to downplay that aspect of the rivalry Wednesday.

"This is a big fight, and it means a lot to Mexicans fans," he said. "But this is a fight for all of Mexico. I am fighting for all of Mexico, not just Mexico City."

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/boxing/stories/2002-06-20-usat-barrera-morales.htm