Peden Has Finally Arrived

The way Robbie Peden figures it, what can Marco Antonio Barrera possibly do to him that hasn’t been done to him before? And in a far more cruel and painful manner.

Could it get any worse than the July night in 1999 when Peden, by his own count, absorbed 36 blows that left him with a broken kneecap, a fractured finger, a concussion and a shattered face that required 55 stitches?

Not that those injuries were suffered in the ring.

Peden, who will fight Barrera tonight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena for the World Boxing Council/International Boxing Federation super-featherweight championship, was the victim of an attack in his parents’ home in Brisbane, Australia.

The attacker -- Elton Lloyd Davis -- was angry because Peden had left a social function with a female acquaintance of Davis.

Before dawn, Peden was awakened by a berserk figure standing over him, smashing Peden furiously with a fighting stick commonly used in the martial arts.

When Davis’ fury finally subsided, he fled the scene, leaving a bloodied Peden stumbling around, trying to make some sense of the jarring reality into which he had awakened.

He staggered out of his room and into the arms of his father, Brian, who was horrified at the sight of his son covered with blood.

“I came this close to dying,” Peden said at a news conference earlier this week, two fingers nearly touching to indicate how close he had come to succumbing to the blows.

But Peden was not about to succumb to the temptation to avoid further abuse to his body by abandoning his boxing career. He had been fighting since he was 10, had been a professional for 2 1/2 years and was determined to realize his dream of winning a world title.

So two weeks after the attack -- Davis later was charged with attempted murder, convicted and sent to prison -- Peden was back on his feet. Two months later, he was back in the gym. Four months after the attack, he was back in the ring, scoring a fourth-round knockout victory over Eloy Ortega Martinez.

But Peden was far from recovered. When he lay in bed at night, he couldn’t shut out the memories of that frightening incident.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Peden said. “I would lock every door before I went to bed, but it didn’t help. I would keep remembering what had happened. If I was lucky, I would sleep two hours all night, even after six months. I finally went for psychological counseling.”

Earlier this year, his nightmares finally behind him, Peden (25-2, 14 knockouts) realized his dream. Fighting Nate Campbell, whom he had knocked out in their first meeting, Peden won the IBF title on an eighth-round TKO.

Now, he faces an even bigger challenge in Barrera (60-4, 42), a champion in three weight categories. But now, Barrera might be having the nightmares.

Peden was once Barrera’s sparring partner. In one of their sparring sessions, while Barrera was preparing for one of his fights against Erik Morales, Peden broke one of Barrera’s ribs.

Barrera downplays the idea that the injury left any mental scars about Peden.

“A sparring session is very different from an actual fight,” he said through a translator.

True, but it is also true that once a fighter has been hurt by an opponent, the memory of that hurt lurks in the back of the fighter’s mind. So both fighters will enter the ring tonight with their dreams -- and their nightmares.

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Shane Mosley (40-4, 35) returns to the ring tonight with a dream of his own: to recapture his place among the best fighters, pound for pound, in the world.

Trying to rebound from two losses to Winky Wright, Mosley is working his way back with matches against fighters who are unbeaten, but also largely unknown among casual boxing fans. In March, Mosley beat David Estrada, who was 18-0 at the time. Tonight, Mosley fights Jose Luis Cruz (32-0-2 27).

In tonight’s other championship match, Levander Johnson (34-4-2, 26) defends his IBF lightweight title against Jesus Chavez (41-3, 28).