Despite there being three great high profile fights that year, as you rightly pointed out, I still feel that there is an over-whelming winner here. The fight I am referring too was 12 rounds of non-stop action, between two of the greatest Mexican fighters that ever lived, during their respective primes. There may have only been only 5,000 people in attendance at the arena, but once both Morales and Barrera started to unload, it sounded like they were at Madison Square Garden. Everybody in attendance knew they had just witnessed fight of the year, how could such a display of courage, heart, punch resistance, stamina, and skill not be rewarded? not only the greatest fight of 2000 in this posters opinion, but the greatest he has ever saw, period. Marco Antonio Barrera vs Erik Morales. :good [YT]bQ0Y_RgfH9Q[/YT]
morales - barrera I for me. it was the type of fight that reminds us why we love this sport. the atmosphere was great, the drama hung heavy and the action was epic. whatever the decision was, both fighters stocks rose tremendously after the fight. though looking back at, i really enjoyed vargas - tito as well. tito emphatically closed the show in a pretty competitive fight.
there is little doubt about this one. tito v. vargas and de la hoya v. mosley i were good fights, but, mostly, what made them interesting, fan favorites, big deals, was that the biggest personalities and draws in the sport were involved in fights that really shook up a divisional landscape. the fights themselves were not, in my opinion, superlative in any sense. tito basically owned a courageous, yet woefully unprepared kid in vargas and de la hoy was simply outworked and out-slicked in a tricky, uneven duel against mosley. morales v. barrera, on the other hand was a remarkable, two-way, back and forth, all action drama fest from start to finish. the legitimate, not media produced rivalry rooted in the class wars of mexico and the unique combination of gutter war instincts brought in by guys with really elite technical skillsets made for a thrilling and excellent fight that, to my mind, puts the other two to shame. it was heart and skill elevating one another in turn with an almost endless potential that stretched all the way across the trilogy. morales v. barrera i would have been hailed as a significant war...even if the fighters involved were untested or over-the-hill unknowns penciled in on an undercard at the last minute. can the other two fights make any such claim?
hmm says morales barrera I.... this shiet was THE shiet..... two badboys trying to take the mantle of Mexico's hero after Chavez.
