Whew, close one.
Tuesday night in Las Vegas, Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales ran into each other in the valet parking area at the MGM Grand.
Apparently, Barrera was arriving in a van from his training camp in Big Bear, Calif., and Morales was returning from his workout at the Top Rank gym.
Talk about coincidences
According to Fight News, disaster was avoided when Morales was kept inside his own air-conditioned van while Barrera checked into the MGM.
“It’s hard to imagine what could have happened,’’ Top Rank’s Bob Arum
said with a supposedly straight face. “These guys don’t like each other and it was like a furnace out there. Maybe 108 degrees.’’
Gotta love it. Arum could sell condoms at the Happy Acres Old Folks' Home. He knew what was going to happen - nothing. But it still made the news.
. Unless Barrera and Morales are complete morons, they’re not going to get in a fist fight in a parking lot just four days before they fight in front of the world for a million dollars. And if for some crazy reason they do decide to start the fight early, there are enough cool heads around to make sure they don’t get close to each other.
The two are scheduled to meet for the featherweight title Saturday night at the
MGM in a rematch of a fight that was named “fight of the year,” two years ago. And like Arum said, they’re not close buddies. Barrera once popped Morales at a press conference in Houston, but that was six months ago when there was still time for a cut to heal if anyone broke skin.
This close to the fight, if I’m handling either fighter, I don’t even let them go the
men’s room without three people standing watch outside the door.
You can bet the guys in valet parking would have loved it, seeing the two best
featherweights in the world suddenly duking it out on the sidewalk in front of their work station, clothes ripping, buttons popping, women screaming.
I can hear the guy’s talking about it the next day.
“Hey Dougie, you should have been here Tuesday night when me and Buddy were parking cars. Barrera and Morales, they got into it right here in front of the valet stand. Yeah, really. Somehow, they ended up coming to the hotel at exactly the same time. Both of 'em. Naw, I couldn’t believe it either. Great street fight, though. Barrera ended up breaking his right hand and Morales got cut over the eye. Of course, they had to cancel Saturday’s fight, but damn, you should have seen them rolling around on the sidewalk. They even put a dent in a white Lexus.’’
I’m not saying the whole thing was planned because let’s face it, they are staying at the same hotel and they're probably going to run into each other. But it still has that slick feel of a Bob Arum caper. What are the odds of them running into each other the first few minutes Barrera is in Las Vegas? If it wasn’t staged, it probably should have been.
“I was sweating that one out,’’ said Top Rank publicist Ricardo Jimenez, obviously
following Arum’s lead. “They told me to keep the two fighters apart, and on my first night in Las Vegas, this happens.’’
Amazing.
Rick can be reached at folstad@insideboxing.com, ringfan108@aol.com