Floyd Mayweather Jr. dominates Robert Guerrero to win title fight with lopsided decision.
A 36th birthday, a year off — two months of which was spent in jail last summer on a domestic abuse conviction — would normally be the recipe for disaster for any fighter taking on a quality opponent. But Floyd Mayweather Jr., the pound-for-pound king, is not just any fighter. Instead, he looked the way he always looks: dominant.
Mayweather easily retained the world welterweight championship with a masterful one-sided beatdown of interim titlist Robert Guerrero on Saturday night before a crowd of 15,880 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Guerrero had called out for Mayweather to fight him for the past couple of years, and you know what they say: Be careful what you wish for.
Mayweather appeared vulnerable in his previous fight, when he was tagged repeatedly in a unanimous decision win against Miguel Cotto last May, leading some to suggest that perhaps Mayweather’s years of dominance were coming to a close. But after he took apart a man who was six years younger, physically bigger and unafraid to try to rough him up, forget about it.
It was all Mayweather. All three judges, Jerry Roth, Duane Ford and Julie Lederman, scored it 117-111 for Mayweather. ESPN.com had it 119-109 for Mayweather.
The fight was the first for Mayweather under a 30-month deal he signed with Showtime/CBS — after dumping longtime TV home HBO — that could see him fight up to six times and earn $200 million-plus. His next date is Sept. 14, also at the MGM Grand, and if Mayweather continues to perform as he did against Guerrero, it could be a deal well worth the investment, because “Money” dazzled — and earned a minimum of $32 million, tying his own record for biggest purse in boxing history.
Mayweather rarely got hit cleanly, a testament to his father, Floyd Mayweather Sr., a defensive-minded trainer who returned to head his son’s corner for the first time since a junior lightweight title defense in 2001. They have been estranged on and off for years while Floyd Jr.’s uncle Roger Mayweather served as his trainer. But with Roger increasingly feeling the effects of diabetes and Floyd Jr. realizing he needed to go back to his defensive basics, the match worked.
“I was really happy to be back with my father,” Mayweather said. “I knew after the Cotto fight, I was getting hit too much and my dad would help me get hit less. My defense was on point, and he told me just stick to your defense — the less you get hit, the better — and to box smart.”
Read more: ESPN
