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There are significant title fights in boxing this weekend, but Saturday also brings an exhibition of some note. Marco Antonio Barrera will face off against Daniel Ponce De Leon in New Mexico on FITE.tv. The preliminaries start at 5 p.m. ET and the main card starts at 7:30 p.m. The main event should start in the 9 p.m. hour so you don’t have to worry about it carrying into Terence Crawford’s welterweight title bout with Shawn Porter.
This is being billed as Barrera’s “final fight” and is scheduled for now as a six-round exhibition. That usually means limitations on just how feisty the fighters can get and the referee will have more leeway to stop things.
It’s not surprising this is an exhibition as opposed to a sanctioned bout because neither fighter has stepped in the ring in a long time. Barrera last fought in 2011 when he beat Jose Arias via second round TKO. De Leon last fought in 2014 when he lost via ninth round TKO to Miguel Roman.
Barrera fought across five divisions during his pro career and won major titles in three divisions — junior featherweight, featherweight, and junior lightweight. De Leon fought across four weight classes during his pro career and won major titles at two of them — junior featherweight and featherweight.
This fight is happening at junior middleweight. Given how long it has been since either fought and thus had to remain in true fighting shape, it’s not entirely surprising they’ve put on a few pounds in retirement.
Full Card for Marco Antonio Barrera vs. Daniel Ponce De Leon
- Main event: Marco Antonio Barrera vs. Daniel Ponce De Leon, junior middleweight
- Abel Mendoz vs. Victor Zaleta, junior lightweight
- Clinton Chavez vs. Johnny Soto, welterweight
- Sebastian Rodriguez vs. Xavier Madrid, welterweight
- Demler Zamora vs. Manual Rubalcava, featherweight
- Angel Chavez vs. Michael Sanchez, super middleweight
- Jonathan Lee Rice vs. Cody Beck, heavyweight
- Christian Romero vs. TBA, junior flyweight
- Avoran Graham vs. Alejandro Moreno, featherweight
- Luis Angel Ledesma vs. John Herrera, lightweight
- Terrance Livingston vs. Gerald Valdez, TBD