Nothing Stops Barrera on Way to a Knockout

When Marco Antonio Barrera tried to get into the Pond of Anaheim on Saturday night, he was stopped because he didn’t have a credential.

It proved to be the biggest obstacle the World Boxing Organization junior-featherweight champion faced all night.

Barrera successfully defended his title and improved to 41-0 with 29 knockouts by stopping Jesse Benavides (40-5-1, 25 knockouts) with 1:45 remaining in the third round.

In the semi-main event, Mark Johnson knocked out Francisco Tejedor with 1:35 left in the first round to win the vacant International Boxing Federation flyweight title before a disappointing crowd of 5,877, less than half of capacity. The show was also telecast on pay-per-view.

Barrera dominated the bout from the opening bell, finishing off Benavides with a left hook to the rib cage that left the former WBO junior-featherweight champion crumpled in the corner in a fetal position.

“I expected more of a fight,” admitted Barrera, who needed five knockdowns to finish off his last opponent, Kennedy McKinney. “But as long as I win, I’m happy. I feel like I’m improving.”

He’s improving so much that Barrera is increasingly being mentioned as the successor to the aging Julio Cesar Chavez in the role of Mexico’s greatest fighter.

Benavides knew he was in trouble the moment he felt the first sting of Barrera’s punches.

“He is the best guy I’ve fought in a long, long time,” Benavides said. “He was too strong for me. I wanted to bide my time, get him into the sixth or seventh round and hope he might lose some steam.”

Johnson, who has won 28 fights in a row, had to endure a period of about a year with the No. 1 ranking in three boxing organizations before he finally got his title shot. But when he got into the ring, it didn’t take him long to win the title.

Johnson (29-1, 22 knockouts) won the fight with a right-hand jab followed by a straight left that landed squarely on the jaw of Tejedor (43-5, 31 knockouts).

“After working so hard and waiting so long to fight for the title,” Johnson said, “to win it this fast, there is no way I could imagine it.”

In other preliminary fights, junior-lightweight Jorge Paez (56-10-4, 37 knockouts) won a technical knockout over Jose Sanabria (22-14-3, 12 knockouts) when referee Robert Byrd stopped their scheduled 10-rounder with 1:42 remaining in the sixth round.

Paez, ever the showman, entered the ring wearing a King goaltender’s outfit, then put on perhaps the best performance by anyone wearing that uniform all year.

Jesse Magana (18-4-2, eight knockouts) defended his North American Boxing Organization junior featherweight title with a unanimous 12-round decision over Jose Ayala (15-3, six knockouts).