Mexican 45-year-old veteran Mariana ‘Barby’ Juarez defeated Japan’s Tomomi Takano by unanimous decision on Saturday to retain her World Boxing Council (WBC) silver super bantamweight belt in the penultimate fight of her career.
Barby, who had his first professional fight in 1998, won all three cards by 100-90.
Barby Juarez wins her penultimate fight
🥊 ‘BARBY’ JUAREZ WINS WITH AUTHORITY OVER TAKANO AND ASKS JACKIE NAVA🥊
📅 11/oct
🏟️ U. Cuauhtémoc
📺 @MiCanal5 @TUDNMEX#BoxTelevisa #SabadosDeBox@WBCBoxing @wbcboxeo@wbcmoro@Tu_IMSS@oskuchle pic.twitter.com/K2HiUXot8K– LatinKO Promotions (@LatinKOprom) October 12, 2025
With the result, Juarez has 58 wins, 20 by knockout, 13 losses and four draws; Takano, 38, has 14 wins, nine by knockout, six losses and one draw.
The last fight in the career of Mariana Juárez, historic of Mexican women’s boxing, will take place next year in an event organized by the WBC in the esplanade of the Monument to the Revolution located in the capital of this country.
Barby’ was aggressive from the beginning of the fight. She did not allow the Japanese to keep the distance thanks to her height of 1.73 meters to the 1.67 of the Mexican, who punished the body and sought to hurt her opponent’s face with her overhand right.
The native of the Mexican capital kept up the pace in the second round with repetitions to the face of a Takano who let her guard down on a couple of occasions to provoke Mariana.
Tomomi, who is also a model, insisted on his mocking stance and a marked smile in the third and fourth rounds in the face of Juarez’s repetitive jab and body shots.
In the fifth episode, ‘Barby’, despite the lack of speed due to her veteran status, came in with hooks and straight punches on the face of the Tokyo-born, who remained with her gloves tied up.
The Asian fighter finally released a couple of right hands and some lefts in the sixth that did little damage to her opponent.
Mariana Juarez opened Takano’s lip with a powerful left-handed straight that sent her reeling in the seventh.
Barby’s demolition work intensified in the eighth round. Left hands to the face and repetitions to the body before a rival who desperately sought the tie-up to stop the punishment.
In the ninth, the Mexican babe hit at will a Tomomi who miraculously stayed on her feet and came out in the tenth to throw as she had not done in the whole fight, but Juarez responded to seal her victory.
“She resorted a lot to the clinch, it was complicated for us, but we landed the best punches,” said Mariana Juarez, who wants her compatriot Jackie Nava, one of her fiercest rivals in the professional ranks, for her farewell fight.
With information from Agencia EFE
