This week’s fight of the week is the age old story, a monumental clash of a precocious showman versus a grizzled old veteran.Going into this fight Hamed was unbeaten and seemingly on his way to immortality, his charisma, knockout power and confidence made him into a bonafide star pulling in pay per view numbers that rivaled anyone else in the sport. Barrera was a man on the resurgence, although he was only a few months older he had 20 more fights to his name on the night they met. He had been beaten badly twice by Junior Jones years back and some thought the best days of the Baby Faced Assassin had come and gone. His recent fight for the ages with fellow Mexican Erik Morales had, even in defeat, shown he was back to his best setting up this mouth watering encounter in the featherweight division.
The focused Barrera was all business in the introductions whilst Hamed employed his usual theatrics complete with pre-fight prayer. If Hamed thought he was going to blow Barrera out of the water early he was mistaken as the Mexican legend took the initiative stunning Hamed with a left hook and jabbing effectively out of a tight guard. Hamed throughout had his hands low hoping to land a bomb but was consistently getting out flanked to his right by the savvy vet.As the fight progressed it was clear that this would be a tough night for Hamed, one in which he would need to adjust his strategy to get the win. Barrera, ever the pragmatist, refused to brawl whilst landing consistently to Hamed’s body as well as landing left hooks after throwing right hand leads. Every time Hamed came back into the fight the dogged Barrera would reestablish his lead behind solid fundamentals.
As the fight entered the latter stages a deflated Hamed took to clowning and demonstrating his strong chin, the unimpressed Barrera continued to punish and outflank him at every opportunity showing strong fundamentals are so called for good reason. In the final round Barrera was docked a point for driving Hamed into the corner in what could only be called a big brother move. The elder statesman and consummate pro no doubt enjoyed showing the cocky show off that he was anything but impressed, intimated or buying into the Prince’s reputation.
As the scores were read out Hamed’s hall of fame coach Emmanuel Steward congratulated Barerra for a masterful performance. Hamed only fought once more, declining the rematch and soon retiring with injured hands and no doubt hurt pride. Barrera went on to fight 19 more times, meeting Morales again twice as well as the phenom Manny Pacquiao and legendary Juan Manuel Marquez. In retrospect this fight was for me a victory for fundamentals, stoicism and strategy, it was always said that Hamed made a lot of mistakes but until this point no one was really able to capitalize. Barrerra refused to brawl knowing Hamed’s great power was not to be messed with.
So much can be learned by watching classic match ups, come back next week for another classic fight of the week.