It?s been well over a year since we last saw Robert ?The Ghost? Guerrero in the ring. On April 9th of 2011, he impressively defeated Michael Katsidis over 12 rounds in a lightweight contest at the MGM Grand. It was perhaps the most complete performance of his career and soon, a junior welterweight bout was set up for late August against Marcos Maidana in his home region of San Jose. But just a week or so before that highly anticipated bout, Guerrero blew out his left rotator cuff during training. The ailment not only scratched the Maidana appointment, it put him on the sideline for the rest of the year. Only now, in late July, is Guerrero back facing live fire, as he is scheduled to face Selcuk Aydin back home at the HP Pavilion (Showtime, 10 p.m., ET/PT).
As expected, Guerrero is chomping at the bit to regain the momentum he had last year.
?I?m excited to get out there and perform. It?s been a year already and I can?t wait. I?m excited, hungry; it?s been way too long. I?m overdue. I?m very anxious to get back in the ring,? he told Maxboxing last week. Guerrero is 29 years old, right in the thick of what should be his physical prime. He knows this time cannot be squandered. Asked to recall how he got hurt in the lead-up to the Maidana fight, he explained, ?I was sparring and I stepped off and threw a left hand in a weird angle and it landed and the rotator cuff tore and my arm just went limp.?
He knew immediately that this was going to require more than just icing it a day or two.
?I had experienced it before when I was younger,? said Guerrero, ?but as soon as I felt the tear, man, it was just instant pain. I was like, ?Man, this ain?t good at all.?? Guerrero went through several months of physical rehabilitation, going three times a week to sessions to rebuild the strength and muscle fibers in his left shoulder before he could even hit a heavy bag. He says he feels as good as new. ?It feels great; I have no pain there. I can move it around in different angles that I couldn?t move it before and it?s feeling tremendous.?
As the calendar turned to 2012 and Floyd Mayweather was looking for a fight, Guerrero grabbed a few headlines with a series (OK, try a bombardment) of press releases calling out for a crack at big ?Money.? But it didn?t seem to make any real sense; the public simply wouldn?t buy a Mayweather fight against a guy who had never fought above 135 pounds in a main event and was coming off an injury. Still, Guerrero thought he was a viable option at the time. ?Yeah, definitely; I thought I had a shot at it and that?s why we were working hard [to get it] and that?s why you have a P.R. team also. They gotta work hard and do their jobs. I thought I had the chance,? he said.
Truthfully, they were about the only ones. It got to be a bit comical as Guerrero was quoted as saying to Mayweather, ?Step up, punk.? But hey, they stayed relevant while on the sidelines. His publicist, Mario Serrano, says with satisfaction, ?The only thing I can say is that we landed an actual article in USA Today,? adding, ?Google ?Robert Guerrero and Floyd Mayweather?; you?ll see all his articles.?
He was offered a chance to fight on that May 5th pay-per-view undercard (when Mayweather eventually faced Miguel Cotto) against Paulie Malignaggi, which he declined. Guerrero explained, ?We wanted to do a main event fight. We wanted to take care of business on a main event card and we were working for it and this fight right here, it put us in that position where we want to be in.?
So now Guerrero returns against Aydin and says ring rust is not a huge concern. To him, boxing is like riding a bike. Do it long enough and it becomes second nature.
?No, I?m not concerned about ring rust. Having to be scheduled to fight last August, I had that whole training camp to get ready for Maidana. I had all the sparring I needed; I had everything. It was about 10 days out from the fight, so I was in great shape. My timing and everything was on, good sparring; everything was all put together. Unfortunately, I got the injury. So it was pretty much like having the fight without the fight because of all the preparations I went through,? said Guerrero, who has a career mark of 29-1-1 with 18 stoppages.
The most frustrating aspect of this whole ordeal was that Guerrero was seemingly building some consistency as a prizefighter, something lacking in the past. And with a win over Maidana last summer, he wouldn?t have been such a long shot to be part of conversations as a possible Mayweather foe- precisely the idea of facing Aydin for the interim WBC welterweight title (Mayweather is still technically the WBC welterweight titlist and beat Cotto at junior middleweight. It?s not clear which division he will return to).
Guerrero explained, ?The whole idea of moving to ?47 is to get into position to fight Floyd Mayweather, getting to that huge mega-fight and get the opportunity to fight the best fighter in the world. That?s where I?m positioning myself, so that?s why were taking on Aydin.? Guerrero admits the timing of his injury couldn?t have come at a worse time. ?There?s a lot of frustration; I?ve had an up and down career. It?s been rocky. And when you?re right there- I don?t care who it is- it?s very frustrating to be right there at the doorstep and not be able to walk in.?
He gets the chance to knock on the door once again this weekend.
WHO DAT?
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer had some rather pointed words for certain members of the media in this article, http://ringtv.craveonline.com/blog/174027-schaefer-adrien-broner-is-a-superstar, where he stated, among other things:
?What?s troubling is that some media members are being manipulated by Bob Arum, and the sad thing is that some of the people at HBO are falling into that trap. People like Michael Lombardo and Richard Plepler are not seeing through what?s going on, and it?s unfortunate.?
Geez, I wonder what Richard is talking about. I?m pretty sure Lombardo and Plepler have much bigger things to worry about than some ?Boxing After Dark? card in the middle of summer. But just in case they missed it, here?s something I wrote in the aftermath of last week?s HBO telecast: http://www.maxboxing.com/news/main-lead/boxing-after-farce. And guys, when you?re in town, let?s grab lunch. I got some great ideas for season three of ?Game of Thrones? and ?The Newsroom.?
Schaefer added, ?All of these other promoters who are talking sh*t, and who are using certain media members, they?re just idiots. And what it shows you is that these media members who have 10,000 followers or less on Twitter, that they are totally insignificant. It is unfortunate that smart people like some of the HBO brass are following these — I can?t even call them journalists — these bloggers and are being influenced by that, it is pretty darned sad.?
I couldn?t agree more, Richard. I can?t stand some of those smart-ass writers on press row (and for the record, folks, as I write this, I have 10,548 followers).
But my Maxboxing colleague, Gabe Montoya, takes issue with this, tweeting (@gabriel_montoya): ?Schaefer talking about Arum manipulating media while being interviewed by a writer he hired on a #boxing website his company owns. Priceless?
Gabe, c?mon, this is the stuff that got you banned from Golden Boy events in the first place.
BRONER MAIL
Here are some emails I got the last day or two in light of Adrien Broner?s most recent performance:
In light of the farce that took place, it seems as though Broner is developing into a nice draw in Cincinnati. I emailed the Ohio State Athletic Commission to find out he had a paid attendance of about 4,300.
I remember you saying you were interested in how well he would draw. It seems as though the prices were very reasonable. That seems like a pretty decent draw considering a baseball game was going on and Broner is just cracking the surface.
S.Morgan
Thanks for the info (and the exact totals were 4,296 tickets sold for a gate totaling $136,890) and as I?ve said before, Broner, like many other young pugilists today, has been shepherded around the country fighting in different locales (where Golden Boy staged cards). But during this time, he has also set down some roots in his home city where he has fought numerous times. And while many others may frown at what took place this past weekend, everyone loves a winner locally. With the right fights and consistent action, I think those numbers can and will grow in ?The Queen City.?
Hey Steve,
I?m a longtime reader who just had to write in to you regarding the Broner weight situation. I know you have gone on record as someone who is amused or at least not bothered by Broner?s cockiness, but what do you think about what he did on Saturday? I usually like fighters with a healthy ego (I was a big fan of Roy Jones, Naseem Hamed, Lennox Lewis etc.) but I think Broner completely crossed the line. For the people who say that Escobedo made his choice, and he took the extra money, I think it is worth reminding them that had Escobedo walked away, he wouldn?t have just been walking away from the extra money being offered, he would be walking away from the entire purse. That is the situation Broner put him in, seemingly intentionally. I know there is no one out there to punish Broner for it, but all that crap with his Twitter pictures, essentially boasting a week before the fight that he wasn?t trying to make weight and would not make weight; I am in shock that a professional boxer would show that little respect to his profession and to his opponent. I remember all of the outrage when Castillo came in heavy for the 3rd fight with Corrales, but it at least he seemed disgusted with himself for it. I?m really curious to see if there will be the usual contrarians who will come out and praise Broner; impressed how he can make his own rules. What are your thoughts?
-Sean
Sean, you pretty much echo what I?ve said from the beginning. What Broner did absolutely crossed the line. Hey, I like showmen because I?ve believed for a long time that boxing is just entertainment and showbiz dressed up as a sport. But when rules are so blithely circumvented, that?s where things are out of bounds. His previous antics never gave him an unfair competitive advantage; not even attempting to make weight (twice) certainly did.
But as I?ve stated before, the guy is amusing (some would say downright bizarre if you go on his Twitter timeline) and he is the type of performer who has you talking about him the next day at work at the water cooler. I think that?s a plus for boxing and his brand. To me, he?s a lot like another guy that plied his trade for years in Cincinnati, Chad Ochocinco (or did he just recently go back to ?Johnson??) who would?ve been just a Pro Bowl receiver on a bad team for years without his shtick. He turned out to be a guy who became a transcendent figure with endorsement deals and a ?Dancing with the Stars? appearance because of his antics.
You may love or loathe what ?The Problem? brings to the table but many of you simply won?t turn away.
First off I want to say I love your site… Been keeping track of your work for some time now (years actually… Lol…)… Also, you may not remember but I had the honor of meeting and talking to you in Houston for the Morales vs garcia fight as I worked the media for boxingsocialist.com… Just want to tell you that it was a great honor to just be in the same group with such a great boxing mind… I have a lot of respect for your work as a boxing writer…
On to the fight… Just want to say everything you have said and the responders have said are all 100% correct… It is pretty obvious escobedo was forced in more ways than just one I?m sure to go into that fight… That itself is criminal in my opinion… But also, broner and his teams total lack of respect and seem to care just really left a bad taste in my mouth.. he seems to now only have vote. A pass by HBO but also most members of the media…I applaud you speaking out on this behavior… Correct me if I?m wrong but the kid is being treated like a superstar and has yet to be a truly credible contender… To date he has yet to fight someone that there was a question on who would win the fight…litzau and deleon (whom you can argue rather or not be won) aside who has he fought of any real substance? Just my opinion but he reminds me of a fighter from the early 90?s by the name of fast Eddie hopson… Remember him? He too held a paper belt (ibf if I remember correctly) and looked to be the goods till he faced a real contender in Tracy Harris Patterson.. he got beat down… Broner reminds me of that kid in a lot of ways from their style of fighting to the paper belt… Just my two cents… If he is as good as he and his team says he is… He needs to seriously step up his comp and fight guys that can truly test him.. he?s got a fighter in Lundy calling him out… Lundy would in my opinion be the best fighter he has fought to date in my opinion… He?s got challenges out there that will give us a true marker of where his skill set really stands…. Makes you wonder why his teams not seeking out those challenges… Makes me wonder if they know something they are saving for the big fight before its exposed.. just a thought…
Anyway just want to say again love ya work!!! Always a great read..
Jeffrey D
Jeff, thanks for the gratuitous praise (that will always get you into my articles) but yeah, I hear ya. For all his plaudits, Broner is still unproven to a certain degree. I think he?s a real talented guy and it says here that he won?t be physically pushed till he hits 140 pounds and faces the likes of Lucas ?The Machine? Matthysse. But it was pointed out to me on Twitter by Jake Donovan of Boxingscene that it could be argued that Broner did not face a legitimate top-10 130-pounder during his run. So while he is naturally gifted, yeah, he still has some r?sum? building to do.
And please, let?s pump the brakes on the Broner-Mayweather comparisons for now. At junior lightweight, Mayweather faced the likes of Genaro Hernandez, Angel Manfredy and Diego Corrales and thrashed them. Say what you will about Mayweather; before he cherry-picked opponents as he gained economic leverage, as a young fighter, he more than handled his business- and always made weight.
And yeah, Eddie Hopson, there?s a name I hadn?t heard in a while.
