is barrera not respected in mexico?

was just wondering cause i just read this in the guardian...was a real old newspaper lol

Marco Antonio Barrera wants two things: a fourth world title and, more importantly, the love of his people.
Curiously for someone who has fought for a living since he was 15, won world titles at three weights, and been involved in several of the memorable contests of our time, the Mexican is regarded lightly in his own country, where machismo rivals Catholicism as a religion, where poverty is a binding force, and where public opinion is shaped by a few. It troubles him deeply.
"I gotta tell you the truth," he says from his mother's big house in Mexico City, "some people here, they just don't like me. Outside, I am more popular than in my own country. I don't know why. It has always been that way. But they don't really know me. Someone is controlling the press here, so I have to show them. Again."
He yearns for the respect Filipinos pay Manny Pacquiao, who lived rough on the streets after his father ate his pet dog, who begged and sold doughnuts to feed his family, whose first paid fight, at 14, earned him 50p – and who stands to earn another £20m when he fights Barrera's close friend

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in Las Vegas on 2 May.
Barrera has been the Baby-Faced Assassin for 20 years, almost as long as Amir Khan, his opponent in Manchester on Saturday, has been alive. When Barrera turned professional as a flyweight weighing 111lb after a stellar amateur career, he imagined all of Mexico would one day rise up to praise him. They did not and it has dogged him, driven him to the point when, at 35 and clearly not the force he was when a world champion at featherweight, he is willing to risk humiliation at the hands of a bigger, stronger fighter 14 years his junior to prove his compadres wrong.
"If I win a world title at a fourth weight, lightweight," he says, "I would be the first Mexican to do it. Maybe then they will love me."
Barrera is the victim of envy and misunderstanding. He never starved for his art, in the accepted barrio-to-riches way. He was never gym meat for star fighters. He did not get pitched in as a selected opponent at the last minute against house fighters on the way up. When Barrera finished his workout, he went home to a comfortable home in the suburbs where his father, a set designer for television shows, and his mother took good care of Marco and his younger brother.
In fact, Barrera might have entrenched his middle-class credentials beyond redemption had he gone on to be a lawyer, but his thirst for a fight saw off his cerebral side. He was two and a half years into legal studies at La Salle University in Mexico City when he was preparing for the first of his three dramatic fights against Erik Morales, in 2000. "It was too much to combine with my

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," he said. He lost a split decision and gave up law.
Hatton was there that night, and Barrera will call on him in Manchester today before getting ready for Khan. "He has been with me for the trilogy of fights with Morales," Barrera says, "and I was at some of his fights in Manchester. We spoke last week. He is a great friend."
If they are frank with each other, it should be an interesting exchange, because the Hitman doesn't think Barrera can beat Khan; Barrera is convinced, against most available evidence, that Hatton will beat Pacquiao.
Whatever their opinions of each other's fights, Barrera refuses to criticise Hatton for his hard-drinking lifestyle. "He likes to party, no problem, but he told me he has left the beer and wine longer this time than for any other of his fights," Barrera says. "But I really don't want to get into that. He is ready. I think it's going to be a great fight and I am going with Hatton because he's the bigger guy and because of his body punching."
Barrera's view of his own task is similarly upbeat. More than once recently he has been asked if he is still capable of doing to Khan what he did to Naseem Hamed in Las Vegas in 2001. "Definitely, the years have passed, but I have more experience, too, so I think I have everything to teach Amir about the great sport of boxing – as I did with Hamed," Barrera says. "Every fight is difficult at the time; this one is difficult now, the same as eight years ago.
"It is a test for me, my first fight at 135. I am doing the weight good and everything is looking fine. I have a lot of respect for Khan, he's a young fighter, in great condition and he has many fans in England. You have to respect the guy. Amir Khan losing to me is losing to a legend. He will find his way. He is ready for these big fights."
But is Barrera any more? There is a sense this is a rush to closure. If there is any justice, it will be a clean and quick finish to a wonderful career.

 

i think its a bit unfair for fighters to be judged on there background when barrea fought like he was poor fightin to live he still entertained as much as any mexican