By David Martinez / Boxing Historian / dmboxing.com

A month prior to the June 22, 2002 Marco Barrera vs. Erik Morales WBC Featherweight Championship, held at the MGM Grand Arena, Las Vegas, I spent a grand weekend at Barrera’s training camp in Big Bear, California.

I covered the weigh-in and the fight itself in Las Vegas, but it was actually the training camp that I was simply delighted to attend as an in-house guest.

Barrera won a unanimous decision, which was the second bout of a trilogy between these two great Mexican warriors.

In their first bout, Barrera lost a split decision on February 19, 2000; and in their third bout, Barrera won a majority decision on November 27, 2004. Ironically, each fight was at a different weight class, with their first at super bantamweight (122), their second at featherweight (126), and their third at super featherweight (130).

In my personal P4P rankings of the greatest retired Mexican-born boxers, which is based not on who beat whom, but more based at the height, peak, prime, and pinnacle of their careers, I list Barrera at #8 and Morales at #11, respectively.

That list includes a great array of fighters. My top 15 in order are Julio Cesar Chavez, Ruben Olivares, Carlos Zarate, Vicente Saldivar, Salvador Sanchez, Ricardo Lopez, Miguel Canto, Marco Antonio Barrera, Juan Manuel Marquez, Rafael Herrera, Erik Morales, Raton Macias, Jose Becerra, Baby Arizmendi, and Carlos Palomino.

Alphabetically, here are the deserving honorable mention fighters; they are Kid Azteca, Rodolfo Casanova, Chucho Castillo, Pipino Cuevas, Humberto Gonzalez, Roldofo Gonzalez, Yaqui Lopez, Gasper Ortega, Lauro Salas, Jesus Pimentel, Lupe Pintor, Jose Luis Ramirez, Efren Torres, Alfonso Zamora, and Juan Zurita.

Here’s sharing a few selected photos from my collection, May 2002, in camp with a true champion – Marco Antonio Barrera.