Mayweather: Guerrero will be number 44

By Boxing News - 03/12/2013 - Comments

floyd7By Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (43-0, 26 KO’s) will be looking to pick up his 44th consecutive win of his 17-year pro career on May 4th against WBC interim welterweight champion Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (31-1-1, 18 KO’s) on Showtime/CBS pay-per-view, and it’s looking like Mayweather will have no problems accomplishing that goal.

Mayweather said “I do expect the same outcome for him as all of the others who have challenged me before. 43 have tried and 43 have failed. He will be number 44.”

It’s hard to argue with that. Guerrero is pretty limited and looks like a fish out of water now that he’s moved up from lightweight to welterweight. He’s won his first two fights at welterweight, but he’s done it against limited opposition in Selcuk Aydin and Andre Berto.

It’s not that Berto didn’t used to be a decent fighter, but he’s clearly not the fighter he once was year ago, so it’s not surprising Guerrero beat him. You can make an argument that Guerrero probably should have had several point deductions for fouling in the Berto fight and so the scores should have a lot closer than they were.

Guerrero was able to knock Berto down in the 1st after grabbing him and hitting him with shots while holding onto him. That knockdown should have been waived if the referee had been on his job. With the point deductions and the knockdown waived off, the Berto-Guerrero arguably should have been a lot closer than it turned out to be.

Mayweather won’t fall into the same trap that Berto did by standing with his back against the ropes for 12 rounds letting Guerrero get off his punches. That’s the only way that Guerrero can win the fight is if he has Mayweather trapped against the ropes.

Guerrero isn’t a good fighter in the center of the ring, as we saw in his bout with Aydin, because he doesn’t have the hand speed, power or the mobility to dominate. He absolutely needs to walk Mayweather down, rough him up, and force him against the ropes so that he can bludgeon him for 12 rounds like he did against Berto. Mayweather isn’t stupid, so he’s probably not going to go along with that problem.



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