By Dan Ambrose: After his struggles to beat fringe contender Yoshihiro Kamegai (24-2-1, 21 KO’s), Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (32-2-1, 18 KO’s) is still conducting damage control to help shape the minds of boxing fans that saw the fight. Guerrero won the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision at the StubHub Center in Carson, California, but he took a lot of head trauma from the powerful punches from the Japanese fighter.
Guerrero says that he could have made it a very easy fight if he wanted to, but he wanted to make it exciting for the fans, which is why he says he stood in there and fought Kamegai in a toe-to-toe battle for 12 rounds.
“I hope the fans enjoyed the fight as much as I did,” said Guerrero. “I know I could have made the fight easier by boxing, but then the fans would have not gotten their money’s worth. I love to fight, it’s in my blood, and it’s what I do…I’m a fighter. One thing you can take to the bank is when you tune into watch me, or pay for a ticket to any of my fights, you’re going to get excitement. There’s nothing better than a toe to toe battle!”
I don’t believe that Guerrero purposely fought Kamegai in that manner. It looked like Guerrero didn’t have the legs for him to get on his bike to move around the ring. We saw him attempt to use movement against Kamegai late in the fight, but Guerrero quickly gave up the job after a couple of circles of the ring because Kamegai was able to cut off the ring effortlessly to force Guerrero to fight. You have to remember that Kamegai was a smart fighter who wasn’t going to be tricked by any of the things that Guerrero was trying to do in the ring.
Kamegai was going to force Guerrero to fight, and he did an excellent job of doing that. It’s a credit to Guerrero that he was still able to beat him despite the fact that Kamegai was landing the harder shots the entire fight. But for Guerrero to say that he could have made it an easy fight if he wanted to, it sounds disingenuous and it gives the impression that he’s trying to conduct damage control after the fact. The reality is that Guerrero wasn’t good enough to dominate Kamegai, and he wasn’t mobile enough to make it an easy fight by staying on the move. Whether it be age or his year of inactivity, Guerrero didn’t have the stamina to move around the ring.
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