Mayweather-Guerrero on 5/4 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada

By Boxing News - 12/22/2012 - Comments

mayweather3423By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (43-0, 26 KO’s) reportedly has decided to take the less popular and arguably much more safer fight against WBC interim welterweight champion Robert Guerrero (31-1-1, 18 KO’s) on May 4th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The choice for Mayweather was to fight the light hitting Guerrero or the much harder punching and heavier WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, and Mayweather, being a businessman, opted for the easier fight in terms of his health.

Alvarez would have been a much harder for the soon to be 36-year-old Mayweather because he would have had to take a lot more punishment to win the fight. If you thought the punishment that Mayweather absorbed against Miguel Cotto was something, then try to imagine Mayweather taking twice as much punishment.

It would have been a much harder fight for Mayweather to win because he doesn’t move as well as he used to, and to beat a guy like Alvarez, you have to be able to move constantly to keep the slow moving fighter from being able to sit down on his shots.

The Mayweather-Guerrero fight still hasn’t been announced but it looks like they still have some things that need to be worked out with the contract before they can break the news to the boxing public. But this definitely will be the fight for Mayweather because he’s not going to take a harder fight against Alvarez when he’s got an easier option against Guerrero available to him.

Mayweather will have to find a way to deal with Guerrero’s high work rate, his street fighting tactics, and his ability to fight on the inside. Guerrero was able to smother the offense of his last opponent Andre Berto by bulling him to the ropes and then keeping him there by a combination of pressing his body against him and throwing a lot of punches.

Mayweather isn’t known for being a strong fighter and he may have problems with Guerrero’s mugging style because it takes a lot of energy to get out from those types of situations. Mayweather could foil Guerrero’s fight strategy by using movement, but at 36, I don’t know that Mayweather can move enough to keep from getting worked over in the same way that Berto was.

Mayweather might be able to still dominate Guerrero while pinned up against the ropes, but he’ll still have to take a lot of shots from him. This won’t be an easy fight for Mayweather, and hopefully he doesn’t end up looking like Berto did after the fight with both eyes almost completely closed from all the shots he took.



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