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Pacquiao hammers Barrera in super featherweight bout

Filipino boxing hero Manny Pacquiao continued his mastery over veteran Mexican boxer Marc Antonio Barrera on Saturday with a unanimous 12-round decision in their super featherweight fight.

In a rematch of their 2003 bout, which was also won by Pacquiao, the Filipino fighter dominated Barrera with superior hand speed and harder punches.

"I am satisfied. I tried to give a good fight," Pacquiao said. "I had to be careful because he is still a good fighter and not an easy opponent."

All three judges gave the decision to Pacquiao by a wide margin, with Glenn Trowbridge and Jerry Roth scoring it 118-109 and Tom Schreck scoring it 115-112.

Pacquiao has blitzed through the best fighters Mexico has had to offer since 2003, including Erik Morales, who he knocked out twice, Oscar Larios, Emanuel Lucero, Hector Velazquez, Jorge Solis and Barrera.

The hard-hitting southpaw has only lost once in his last 21 bouts, a close decision in 2005 to Morales in their first encounter.

The 28-year-old Pacquiao (45-3-2, 35 KOs) was the more aggressive of the two, trading blows with the underdog Barrera in the center of the ring and often beating the 33-year-old Mexican to the punch at the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino in Las Vegas.

"I always believed I could beat him," Pacquiao said.

Barrera, who said he plans to retire after the bout, tried to engineer a tactical fight, but looked slower and more awkward.

But unlike 2003, when his corner threw in the towel, this time Barrera hung on to remain standing at the end of the final round.

Barrera's corner continuously told their fighter he was winning the fight in the early rounds, even though he was behind on the judges' scorecards. In the later rounds they begged him to snap out of his defensive mode and throw more punches.

Pacquiao looked the stronger of the two fighters, especially in the 11th and 12th rounds.

Barrera became frustrated in the 11th round and had one point taken away by the referee for throwing a right hand at Pacquiao during a break in the action.
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