Pacquiao Sends Barrera Packing - Peter Nips McCline

To beat or not get beat? That was the question. Marco Antonio Barrera focused on the latter, as it was apparent after the first round that he was going to play it safe in the long-awaited rematch of his beat-down at the hands of Manny " the PacMan" Pacquiao nearly four years ago. Once a fighter talks retirement, which Barrera did leading up to this fight, he has already retired - so the boxing adage goes.

Now, I am not implying that Barrera threw the fight or did not want to win, but it was clear that he did not want to exchange punches with the Filipino whirlwind. Although he fought admirably in spots and coldly calculated at times, it was clear to me that he simply refused to let his hands go, even when the PacMan was off-balance or inviting punches to the face. Barrera tried to employ the same counter-punching strategy that he used to befuddle and embarrass Prince Naseem Hamed over twelve rounds six years ago. However, two things were different: Barrera was less willing to put himself in harm's way this time around, but more importantly, the PacMan is simply a better fighter than Hamed. To Pacquiao's credit, he consistently pressed the action, landed an unusually high number of right hands (the left hand is his signature punch), and stayed composed in the face of Barrera's frustrating and occasionally dirty tactics.

The result: a lopsided 12 round decision victory for the PacMan and an unceremonious send-off for the future Hall of Famer Barrera, who will now focus on his career after boxing. The fight further cements Pacquiao's supremacy at junior lightweight, adds another victim to his considerable hit list, and hopefully leads to a rematch with rival Juan Manuel Marquez next year.

On a separate card on free cable TV (Showtime Championship Boxing), Samuel Peter gave us some good, bad and ugly in his heavyweight title fight with Jameel "Big Time" McCline. Since this moribund division has given us so little to cheer about lately, I will start with the bad Peter.

The bad started early for Peter - the second and third rounds to be exact. In these two rounds, Peter was rocked, dropped and almost rolled out of the heavyweight title picture, as the usually tentative McCline nearly knocked him out.

The good Peter showed championship heart and resolve from rounds four through 12, surviving these rough spots, and eventually taking over the fight behind powerful left jabs and clubbing overhand right hands.

The ugly Peter emerged in the post-fight interview, as he claimed that he was never seriously hurt, but rather the victim of a slippery canvas which caused him to lose his balance during those rocky moments in rounds two and three. Well, Peter better start slipping more punches in the future or else he and the canvas will soon become well-acquainted in his next major fight!

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