Robert Guerrero could face Khan next if he gets by Kamegai on Saturday

By Boxing News - 06/19/2014 - Comments

LA-WKOT-Guerrero(Picture credit: Hogan Photos) By Scott Gilfoid: There’s talk that former two division world champion Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (31-2-1, 18 KO’s) could be Amir Khan’s next opponent for later this year in November or December if Guerrero, 31, gets passed his hard hitting opponent Yoshihiro Kamegai (24-1-1, 21 KO’s) this Saturday night in their Showtime televised fight at the StubHub Center, in Carson, California, USA.

It’s not expected that Guerrero will have any slip ups in this fight, because he’s way, way above the level of the 31-year-old Kamegain in the talent and experience department, but when you’re talking about a fighter who has been sitting around doing zero for over a year the way that Guerrero has, it’s quite conceivable that he could get spanked by Kamegai in this fight. It happens when you start taking it easy after a big payday the way that Guerrero has after he talked his way into a money fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr last year.

Guerrero makes sense for Khan on many levels. First of all, Guerrero can’t punch at 147, so the chances of Khan getting knocked out by him are quite low unless he falls apart under the strain of an inside attack. To be sure, Guerrero would be looking to force Khan against the ropes the way that Lamont Peterson did in his win over Khan in 2011 so that he could work him over and take advantage of his inability to fight in close. And, yeah, Khan would probably be shoving Guerrero and pulling down on his head for all he’s worth, but Guerrero is a pretty tough customer and likely wouldn’t meekly put up with those tricks the way that Khan’s previous opponents have.

Guerrero would definitely fight fire with fire by using his own tricks, such as holding and hitting. Unless there was a good referee working the fight, I could definitely see a Khan-Guerrero fight looking more like an MMA fight in a cage than an actual boxing match. The other thing that Guerrero gives Khan is a name.

Khan needs a fighter with a name so that he can attract interest from American boxing fans, and crow afterwards about how he beat a well-known fighter, even though guys like Shawn Porter and Keith Thurman are arguably better fighters than Guerrero at 147. With the Khan-Guerrero fight televised by Showtime, Khan could immediately get a chance to call Mayweather in front of a large national audience.

Depending on how good Khan looks in beating Guerrero, he’ll either have the fans interested in him facing Mayweather, or turned off to the idea after watching Khan run and foul his way to a victory. I would hope that Khan would keep it clear against Guerrero and not run, but I doubt it.

This in turn will make it messy for Khan, because he won’t be able to get the credit that he’ll need to from the victory for him to make a strong play for the Mayweather fight. You have to remember that Mayweather doesn’t like to fight runners, and he obviously doesn’t like to fight guys that use rough house tactics 24/7. We saw that last May in Mayweather’s fight against Marcos Maidana.



Comments are closed.