Rude Awakenings
Outclassed by Perez, Barela suffers first defeat; Gomez spanks “Bad Boy”; Furney shocks J. Barela

Ringside report & photos by Chris Cozzone

The card was billed as “Night of Destiny,” but, with all the lessons learned and clinics held last night, “School Days” might’ve been more appropriate.

Before a packed house at the Sky Ute Casino in Ignacio. Colo., local favorite Victor Barela, of Farmington, N.M., suffered his first professional loss when he was outclassed by Denver’s Manny Perez, who pitched a near-shutout for the vacant WBC world youth featherweight belt.

Outsized in, both, reach and height, and surpassed in ring experience and skill, Barela’s only chance of taking home the belt lay in the clamor of a hometown crowd and the steady hammering of his can’t-lose heart.

Last night, however, it still wasn’t enough.

The local kid never had a chance.

Barela established his role as aggressor in the first few seconds of the fight—but through the next ten rounds, he would walk into more punches than he could hope to throw.

Keeping the fight at range, Perez outboxed Barela through the first round, jabbing at Barela while moving. Barela closed the distance in the final minute, landing two clean punches, but Perez’s movement and jab earned him the first.

From the second through sixth, it was Perez’s fight, with Barela’s plight, a hopeless one.

In between stiff jabs, right hand after right hand pegged an onrushing Barela in the second. In the third and fourth, Perez’s added hooks and an uppercut or two on Barela, who stayed at the end of Perez’s range and followed his foe around the ring, absorbing punishment.

By the fifth, the fight appeared to be draining out of Barela. The one-sided slaughter continued in the sixth.

In the seventh, however, the crowd witnessed the best action of the night when Barela suddenly snapped out of his funk and turned the one-sided beating into a fight.

Closing the distance, a rightfully-desperate Barela went to war, bombing Perez with rights and lefts, forcing the Denverite to retreat. Perez, hurt in the attack, weathered the storm, then calmly restaged his successful game plan and fired back at Barela with clean shots.

The seventh proved Barela’s last stand, for in the last three rounds, Perez pulled so far ahead, nothing short of a miracle knockout punch was going to save Barela from his first loss.

Barela’s head snapped back from numerous jabs and big rights in the eighth, while his body absorbed hooks from the increasingly aggressive Perez. Still coming forward but unable to get back in the fight, Barela did not give up—not even when his knees wobbled from a crushing right late in the ninth.

In the tenth, Barela was hurt again, though losing his mouthpiece bought him time to recover and survive Perez’s final assaults for the closing bell.

At the end of ten, all three judges—Levi Martinez, Ruben Garcia and Mark Nelson—scored it lopsidedly for Perez: 100-90 (Nelson) and 99-91. Both Garcia and Martinez gave Barela the seventh round.

NewMexicoBoxing.com/Fightnews.com, too, saw a razor-thin seventh, but had Perez a shutout winner, 100-90.

“I give him a lot of credit,” said Perez, 11-3, 2 KOs with the win.

“He took a lot of good shots and kept coming at me. He has a decent crack, but my conditioning made the difference. I did my prep work.”

Perez’s manager, Chris Morris, says his fighter will have to decide whether he wants to stay at 126 to defend his newly-acquired youth belt, or go back up to 130 where he holds another one of the WBC’s many green trinkets.

“I like 130,” says Perez. “But the weight came off easy in the gym. We’ll see what fights we can get. The plan is fight whomever they put in front of me and to keep moving forward.

“There’s always room for improvement. It’s back to the gym, after this.”

If given the choice, Perez says he’d like a rematch with any of the three fighters who defeated him, three bouts in a row over a year-and-a-half ago: Rashiem Jefferson, Eduardo Escobedo and Juan Jaramillo.

“I feel like I let New Mexico down,” said Barela, who says he’ll campaign at 122 now.

“I wasn’t tired, but I just couldn’t start anything. He’s a good fighter, though—I take nothing away from him.”

With his first loss, Barela, dropping to 9-1-1, 3 KOs, says he’ll campaign at 122 now.

“I was 126 during the whole camp. I could’ve easily made ’22.”