Mayweather turns 36 today; ready for Guerrero on 5/4

By Boxing News - 02/24/2013 - Comments

zx1eseY(Floyd Mayweather Jr birthday cake courtesy of Mayweather’s twitter) By Chris Williams: WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (43-0, 26 KO’s) turns 36-years-old today on Sunday, February 24th. Mayweather is getting ready for his May 4th fight against WBC interim welterweight champion Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (31-1-1, 18 KO’s) on Showtime/CBS pay-per-view.

Mayweather will be coming off of a year-long layoff when he faces Guerrero, but this shouldn’t be a problem for him. Mayweather has been taking a lot of time off between bouts, and never seems to show any signs of rust.

Mayweather said to “I’m ready to perform and show people and the boxing world what I have left. I want to stay active. I haven’t really been active. I want to continue to go out and dominate, and take my skills to the next level, and continue to show the world that Floyd Mayweather is the best. I will go down as the best fighter that ever lived someday. On May 4th, we’ll see what he [Guerrero] has.”

For normal welterweights, 36 is usually an age where they are showing series signs of wear in their skills. Indeed, very few fighters at 147 are able to still fight at a high enough level at 36 for them to be a factor in the division. But with Mayweather, he started off with so much blinding hand speed that even though he has lost some speed due to age, he’s still much faster than his opposition. That’s still going to be the case when Mayweather faces the 5’8” Guerrero on May 4th.

Guerrero doesn’t have fast hands, and he gets over more by throwing a lot of punches than by having any kind of power or speed. Mayweather and Guerrero are both 5’8”, but Mayweather has a two inch reach advantage, a lot more speed, and a huge advantage in terms of facing quality opposition. Guerrero has fought a lot of people during his career, but only a handful of them being real quality.



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