Barrera vs. Marquez:
The Wide Scores & The 7th Round

By Bret "The Threat" Newton
Photos: Marlene Marquez

A lot of commotion and controversy already surrounds the Barrera vs. Marquez bout. Only 2 things that are mentioned: "The wide scores", and "Round 7". The one thing that isn’t controversial is who won the fight. Marquez definitely deserved the win. Barrera put on a great performance as well, to an extent without the un professionalism of hitting late, but when you look at what all the complainings about and the stories that surround this fight, both things don’t even matter since Marquez rightfully won.

First, the wide scores. Barrera managed to win only 2 rounds on Doug Tucker’s official card. Barrera would get 4 on both Patricia Jarman’s and Paul Smith’s official cards. If you watch the fight instead of just paying attention to the biased HBO commentary that even made a remark relating Barrera to the great Sugar Ray Robinson in just the first few rounds (that was laughable honestly), you would notice a lot of very close rounds. There were very few actual dominant or clean cut rounds. The rounds that all three judges agreed and scored the same on were: Round 1 for Marquez, Round 3 for Barrera, Round 5 for Barrera, Round 7 for Marquez, and the final three Rounds, 10-12, to Marquez. That’s 7 rounds all three judges agreed on. Over half a fight. That’s pretty good concerning such a good, close fight that had exchanges from both men throughout where neither really did more than the other. It was even in those hard to score rounds. That means it could have gone either way. Official punch stats late in the fight even showed identical thrown and landed punches by both fighters..

What’s worthy of note and should show you that this fight was not fixed for Marquez in anyway, was that in round 5, a round Barrera only landed 7 punches recorded in the punch stats, a round that Marquez appeared to have won, all three judges gave it to Barrera.

Which rounds were close and had two way action? Rounds 1, 3, 4, 6, and 8. Those five rounds had some great action, and more than most fights these days give which is why the audience were standing in ovation. This is something we should all appreciated first. Whenever there was two way action between these two, neither staggered or landed clean enough to take away from the other. Both were trading, throwing and not stopping. Neither stopped the other in those rounds. They were close and could have been tie rounds or gone either way. So when you think about it, if all 5 of those rounds went to Marquez, then you add the final 3 rounds where Marquez appeared to close the show over Barrera who was tired and holding, then that’s how you get such a wide score. That’s already 8 rounds to 4, which is exactly how two of the judges had it.

I however, gave every close, tie round to Barrera. Close rounds usually go to the current champion anyway, and this would relieve any bias in my score as well. Therefore that would already be 5 rounds to Barrera on my card since I gave Barrera all those 5 close rounds (1, 3, 4, 6 and 8). I also gave Barrera the 2^nd round which means I gave Barrera the first 4 rounds in a row. That’s a huge start for Marco. Now add those up and you can see I’d have Barrera winning 6 of the 12 rounds. So it’s a tie fight on my card. That’s until you count what happened in round 7 exactly....

Round 7. Despite being down, this was the best round Marquez had in the entire fight. He had Barrera out on his feet and staggered on quite a few occasions. It looked like Barrera was on his way down or that he was finished in the fight. Barrera is a warrior however and landed a right that put Marquez down. Sometimes a knockdown round isn’t always a 10-8 round. If a fighter is dominant enough, he himself can score a 10-8 round without any knockdowns. Likewise, if a fighter dominates an entire round, but gets knocked down, or rises from an early knockdown in any round to completely dominate, he may get the point back and still lose the round, but by only 10-9 instead of 10-8. This appeared to be the case here as Marquez had Barrera out in the entire round up until the very end once the knockdown occurred. Referee Jay Nady admitted he made a mistake and thought the knockdown was actually a slip or a push down. Some may have thought Nady didn’t count the knockdown on purpose because of what would happen next, but that’s not the case.

What happened next was Barrera didn’t just have a punch in motion, or even threw a punch from where he was standing, no. Barrera took a few steps over the fallen Marquez to throw another punch. Barrera’s frustration was the cause of that action. This wasn’t an accident. Barrera was upset and frustrated that he was nearly down and losing the worst round of the fight and he wanted to get Marquez and finish him. Only thing is, he had it, he just ended up ruining it for himself. Jay Nady would then take a point away for the blatant late hit and that would make the round 10-8 for Marquez, also letting the time run out on the clock which Barrera could very well have put Marquez down again. Hitting a fighter while he’s down can be accidental, but not when you walk up on him to throw it. Not when the referee is in motion trying to stop Barrera from landing it and not getting there fast enough. This is a foul that Nady promised earlier to penalize with 2 points in fact, or which has been a typical disqualification in the past. We’ve seen fighters take that late hit as a way out of the fight and win on a disqualification. We all know the troubles Terry Norris had, twice, with Luis Santana, as well as Roy Jones’ DQ loss to Montell Griffen. Santana and Griffen getting their victories by technicality, who would both later lose rematches by embarrassing TKO’s.

This was no different course of action in this fight, except Marquez rose to his feet and wanted to win legitimately. This is the 2^nd time in just two fights Marquez has done that. Remember when referee Lawrence Cole wrongfully told Marquez he didn’t need to continue the fight with Jimrex Jaca after a headbutt and had told Marquez was ahead in the fight? Marquez didn’t take the easy win, he went after it. All the credit in the world goes to Juan Manuel Marquez for the fighter and true champion he is. You don’t get fighters like him too often.

My final score, 6 rounds to 6, with a 10-8 round 7. 113-114 for Marquez. So a draw fight really that deserves another. You can switch any of those tie rounds that I gave all to Barrera and give them to Marquez, fact is, Marquez won the fight no matter how you cut it. A fight that Barrera could very well have won and most definitely has a chance to in a rematch, but shows no desire to do so at this time. Of course we want to say there are no losers in such great fights like this one, but the uncalled foul and unsure ness of a rematch that the winner already says "let’s go" to, kind of takes even more away from Barrera and his loss.

The question is, do you want to see Marquez vs. Barrera II, or the long awaited Marquez vs. Pacquiao II first?


Questions Or Comments? Email Bret "The Threat"