Robert Guerrero and Floyd Mayweather Jr. will meet on Saturday in Las Vegas for the WBC welterweight title, and Guerrero is confident entering the fight despite being a heavy underdog.
Guerrero has started a #BeatFloyd social media movement, and he has been talking a lot of trash leading up to the bout.
Guerrero, who is from Gilroy, Calif., has a long-standing relationship with our partner site, Yardbarker.com. He made the video seen above for Yardbarker. In the video, Guerrero predicts he will pull a Buster Douglas-like upset on Mayweather.
“I honestly feel this is a modern-day David vs. Goliath,” Guerrero says in the video. “I’m in that position like Buster Douglas. I’m going to show up to the fight and I’m going to take him out just like Buster Douglas did Mike Tyson.”
Douglas’ win over Tyson in 1990 is widely considered one of the biggest upsets ever in the sport. Tyson was 37-0 at the time and thought to be an unstoppable, killing machine in the ring. But he came in overconfident and didn’t pay much attention to Douglas, who shockingly knocked him out in the 10th round. A lot of people didn’t think anything of the fight, which took place in Tokyo, and they were stunned to see the result.
Guerrero has been saying in the buildup to the fight that he thinks Mayweather is ripe for a fall.
“He knows deep down in his heart his legs are starting to get a little slower. He’s not moving the way he used to move. He knows,” Guerrero said on a recent episode of Showtime’s “All Access.”
“He’s ripe for the picking,” Guerrero told reporters during a February conference call. “You know, he’s been out for a year. … He is sharp in the ring. He puts more pressure on guys. I think that has to do with him not being able to move as good on his legs, where people think, `Oh, he’s changed his style.’ But I just think that when you get older and your legs start to go, you have to change direction.”
All the trash talk from Guerrero may be a calculated move. It was noted on Showtime’s “All Access” that he was encouraged by his co-manager, Luis DeCubas Jr., to be more outspoken and start calling out opponents. He certainly has done that with Floyd.
Though Guerrero is comparing himself to Douglas, there is one difference in the situation: Guerrero believes Floyd is taking him seriously.
“After the beating I put on [Andre] Berto, you’ve got to take somebody seriously, because you know they come out to punish. So I know for sure Floyd Mayweather is taking me seriously,” Guerrero told the media last week. “Especially being out for a whole year, you know, like he said, I mean, it’s been his longest training camp in a long time and he’s putting in the work and the time that he needs to be ready for the fight, but that isn’t going to make a difference, because I know his body size. You can see it. Being a whole year laid off, he’s going to feel the punches.”
Will Guerrero pull off a Buster Douglas-like upset? The odds are not in his favor, but it’s certainly worth watching to see if it will happen.
