Rocky Juarez walked out of the ring after his last fight with Marco Antonio Barrera pleased with his performance and at peace with the decision of the judges that the fight was a draw.
A few minutes later, sitting on a bench in his dressing room, he got the bad news: Errors in adding up the scorecards meant he actually lost the fight.
``I just put my head down and didn't say anything,'' Juarez said. ``What could I say?''
It wasn't the first time in his career that Juarez had to deal with disappointment. In the gold medal final of the 2000 Olympics, he lost a decision that might have been different had the referee stopped his opponent from continually holding.
Unlike that decision, Juarez gets a chance to avenge this loss. He takes on Barrera in a rematch Saturday night for the WBC 130-pound title he felt he should have won in their first fight May 20 in Los Angeles. The fight will be televised on pay-per-view from the MGM Grand hotel-casino.
``I know the mistakes I made in the first fight and I know what I have to do to correct them,'' Juarez said. ``This is going to be a different fight.''
Most in the crowd at the first fight thought it was Barrera making the mistakes. They booed when the draw was announced, thinking the aggressiveness and power punching of the challenger was enough to beat the legendary Mexican fighter who has held titles in three different weight classes.
Juarez wasn't that unhappy himself, just puzzled that he didn't get the decision.
``I felt a draw was better than a loss. We felt we had won but we were willing to take the draw,'' he said. ``We were fighting in California and it was (promoter) Oscar De La Hoya's and Barrera's backyard, so what could we do?''
Juarez went back to Houston, watched tapes of the fight repeatedly, and began picking apart all the mistakes he made in the bout. He did it for a reason _ unlike most people around him, he figured Barrera would be granting him a rematch.
``I said he's going to go back home and he's going to see that even his own fans and the people back in Mexico thought he lost the fight,'' Juarez said. ``And that's going to make him want to fight me again.''
The 32-year-old Barrera, who had two wins in his famous trilogy with Erik Morales, never has been afraid of taking rematches. And he basically agreed with Juarez that the second fight is happening because of the controversy over the first.
``I feel obligated to take this fight and make sure that, obviously, there's no doubt with the first fight,'' Barrera said through an interpreter. ``I don't want to leave any doubt with the promoters. I want to make them happy.''
Barrera has a huge edge in experience over Juarez, with 62 wins against four defeats. He's been in some wars in the ring and has never backed off a challenge, but he looked slow and lethargic in the first fight.
Barrera refused to use conditioning as an excuse, though, and said he never took Juarez (25-2) lightly.
``I took him seriously, like every opponent I take seriously,'' said Barrera, who has 42 knockouts. ``Rocky Juarez is a young, hungry fighter and I took him very serious. This time around I'm in excellent shape.''
Juarez, who has 18 knockouts and seemed to hurt Barrera late in the fight with his left hook, was seemingly on his way to becoming a big-name fighter when he was beaten in a 12-round slugfest by Humberto Soto last August. But he rebounded with two knockout wins to get the Barrera fight, and said he knows now he belongs among the elite fighters.
Still, Juarez longs for what some of the other fighters of the 2000 Olympic team have _ a pro title.
``I see guys on TV with title belts around their waist and it makes me ask myself, `When am I going to get that shot?''' Juarez said. ``Now that I have it, I have to make the best of it.''
© The Canadian Press, 2007
