By Ron Borges

In boxing, the lessons can be hard to swallow. So is the jab of Marco Antonio Barrera. Rocky Juarez can attest to both.

Juarez came to the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Sept. 16 believing it was his night. Only four months removed from a life-and-death struggle with Barrera that was at first ruled a draw but later changed to a one-point victory for Barrera because of a scorecard miscalculation, the 25-year-old Olympic silver medalist was confident that this time the grand prize would not elude him as it had in Sydney six years ago and did again on May 20th in Los Angeles.

Both times Juarez believed he'd done enough to have his hand raised only to be frustrated by the opinions of others. His confidence buoyed by having bloodied Barrera's nose and face and taken him to his limits in their first encounter he was sure he would do more than merely touch the super featherweight champion's WBC title belt this time, as he had at the Staples Center after the decision went against him. This time things would be different because he would have the memory of the gold he wasn't given and the belt he never got  to wear to spur him on if doubts surfaced.

"I touched his belt because it's just something I needed to feel to say to myself, 'That should have been mine.''' Juarez recalled a few days before the rematch with Barrera. "Just the same way as in the Olympics when I felt the gold medal should have been mine. I touched it, picked it up but, of course, I had to give it back. That just made me more determined.''

Juarez remembered how old and battered Barrera was at the end of their close encounter, and believed his power had overcome his inexperience to the point that, by the final three rounds, he was in the face of Barrera like no one since the 130-pound champion lost to Manny Pacquiao three years ago. Because of that and the debateable nature of the decision, Barrera did the honorable thing in a dishonorable business, electing to face Juarez immediately, a sign both of his confidence and his machismo. It is a decision Juarez believed the champion would rue on fight night because this time he intended to touch more than Barrera's belt.

"I left the fight in the judges' hands,'' Juarez said. "That's one of the reasons I was very upset with myself. Fighting a great champion like Barrera you could basically be okay with the fact that you didn't suffer a defeat but when they told me 20, 30 minutes after the fight that I lost by a single point that was hard to accept.

"I guess I started too late and lost a few rounds in the beginning of the fight. I believe that was one of the reasons why maybe the fight was as close as it was. That was one of the biggest things I had to work on - starting off quicker and taking bigger risks.''

What he never considered was why Barrera had agreed so quickly to a rematch. What that act told Juarez, who has the boldness of youth inside him but also its blindness, was that the aging champion knew in his heart he had been given a gift and had to erase that memory at all cost. To a young man, it was the only possible answer. But Marco Antonio Barrera had another explanation entirely.

He knew what Rocky Juarez did not at the conclusion of their unexpectedly close first meeting. He knew the real Barrera had not been in Los Angeles that night.

Unfortunately for young Juarez, he didn't realize that until he had been thoroughly outboxed and outfoxed by one of the greatest fighters in Mexico's long history.

While the first fight had been a brutal and bloody brawl, this one was a technical masterpiece as Barrera fought all night exactly where he wanted to and when he wanted. If he chose to be in the center of the ring, as he did much of the time, that's where they both ended up. When he wanted to rest on the ropes, over they went. Juarez dictated nothing, Barrera everything as he made his young challenger follow him around as if he were tethered to the champion on a short leash.

Round after round Juarez ate a nasty left jab that, according to CompuBox numbers, struck him in the face 105 times. That jab kept him constantly flummoxed and unable to find either proper punching distance or any safe route to get inside and force Barrera to engage in the kind of hand-to-hand combat he was famous for but seemed to have little interest in this time.

"I gave him a boxing lesson and that's exactly what I intended to do,'' said Barrera (63-4, 42 KO) after winning a unanimous decision. "I learned never to fight on the level of my opponent. I'm the champion. I wanted to prove that I can beat him with one hand - my left hand. I wanted to do something different.''

Much to Juarez's surprise he did many things different, not the least of them being a steadfast refusal to please the crowd and Juarez by engaging him at close quarters and trading punches. Instead, Barrera used that stiff jab to stymie Juarez's efforts to close the distance on the champion. When he wasn't stopping him with the jab he was constantly circling to keep away from Juarez's left, which had caused him no end of problems four months earlier, enough problems that months later some speculated we had seen the best of Barrera.

"I'm going to hold him by the hand and take him to school,'' Barrera promised before the rematch. "I looked 10 times at the tape (of their May fight). I won, but I want Ws not controversy. This time everything will be different. It will be the same Barrera as always. Putting on pressure. I took this fight to remind the people who Marco Antonio Barrera is.''

Apparently that was the one thing Barrera failed to accomplish because many in the crowd of 10,421 booed his technical brilliance rather than applauded it, disappointed that he chose this time not to give them another in a long line of toe-to-toe blood bathes but rather a scholarly dissertation on the manly art of self defense.

"Obviously in most of my fights the fans are used to seeing me in explosive fights,'' Barera conceded after it was over and he was unmarked. The people pay money for entertainment. Whichever way they are entertained (cheering or booing) is all right with me But this is a sport where you're supposed to hit and not get hit.''

 

Barrera clearly mastered that art long ago, although he often times abandoned it when pressured into engaging in a fist fight rather than a boxing match. Juarez succeeded in doing that during their first meeting but not this time, a notion that frustrated him to no end, both during the fight and long after it was over.

"I tried to make him fight but he wouldn't,'' said Juarez after losing a unanimous decision in which Barrera kept him offbalance with the deft use of his jab and near constant movement. "It was difficult to catch him.''

There was some truth to that but not as much as Juarez tried to make it for if that was the case Juarez needed to find the guy who jumped him on the way back to his locker room. If Marco Antonio Barrera "didn't want to fight'' then who was the culprit who closed his eye and left him wearing sunglasses at midnight?

Skillful and elusive as Barrera was, this had not been only about movement and magic. There was also a moment of mayhem early in the fight when Barrera slammed home a sizzling uppercut at close quarters that began the process of closing Juarez's right eye. He would continue that blinding work with a rapier jab that landed so often that by fight's end it left the left side of Juarez's face puffy and discolored. That implied something - which was that while Barrera had come to box he had also come to make a point, which was that young men like Rocky Juarez needed to understand who he still is.

"He's a great champion,'' Juarez conceded. "He gave me this eye with an uppercut but a boxing lesson...?''

Only a moment later however Juarez seemed to concede his protest on that point was perhaps not held with as much conviction as it first appeared when he described exactly what he'd been handed even while continuing to protest Barrera's cautiously effective approach.

"He came up with the right game plan,'' conceded Juarez, who obviously did not.  "He clinched and he smothered my punches. He was hard to catch. He didn't want to trade shots.''

No the 32-year-old champion did not. And why should he? He'd already tried that when they last met and found himself in a desperate struggle with a strong and hungry challenger who is at his best against opponents who stand in front of him. Barrera learned that the hard way and had no intention of repeating it nor any need to.

Juarez had hoped to trap Barrera along the ropes and batter him or lure him into face-to-face insider trading of the primal kind but he was never able to convince, cower or coerce Barrera into such a position. Instead Barrera kept Juarez at bay, refusing to give him the space or the freedom to do anythng but follow the champion's lead. That may be roadwork to a young firebrand like Rocky Juarez but to Marco Antonio Barrera it was a formula for an easy night in a harsh work environment.

Over and over Juarez said some form of, "He didn't want globe to fight,'' as if Barrera was somehow obligated to stand in front of him and make his life easier. No, Marco Antonio Barrera didn't want to fight this time. He wanted to box, a fight being something that would run counter to his best interests. And so he did.

Juarez, on the other hand, needed to find the guy who jumped him on the way back to his locker room if he truly believes Barrera didn't fight him because if he didn't, who closed his eye and left him wearing sunglasses at midnight?