Despite criticism, Robert Guerrero embracing title shot

Ten years after he was dismissed as a decent but hardly dominant featherweight, Robert Guerrero remains defiant.

Critics have, for some reason, savaged him throughout his career.

Guerrero’s lack of respect is bewildering after cobbling together a 33-3-1 record with world championships at featherweight, super featherweight and welterweight.

He routinely fights hard and, win or lose, puts on mostly entertaining fights. He was badly outclassed by Floyd Mayweather in 2013, but just about everyone who fought Mayweather was badly outclassed.

It’s hardly damning to be beaten the greatest boxer of his era and one of the best of all-time.

Guerrero has never been one of the world’s elite athletes. He hasn’t been blessed with tremendous reflexes and super speedy hands and feet. He isn’t naturally powerful and he doesn’t have the instinctive feel for boxing that made men like Mayweather and Pernell Whitaker great.

He’s never been remotely close to the pound-for-pound rankings, and yet he’s put together a good record, won some titles and routinely put on entertaining bouts.

It’s hard to ask more of a guy than to give all he has and make the most of the tools he’s been given. That’s the ethic that has defined Guerrero’s career.

But there has been a strange outcry about his match with Danny Garcia at Staples Center in Los Angeles on Saturday that will be televised nationally by Fox.

Part of it, undoubtedly, is a negative reaction to sanctioning body politics. The bout is for the WBC welterweight title that became vacant when Floyd Mayweather retired.

Now, is appointing the Garcia-Guerrero winner the champion the best way to fill that vacancy? Of course not.

But that was the decision the WBC made, and it’s not as if Guerrero lobbied for the chance.

And yes, Guerrero, 32, seems to be nearing the end of the line. That can’t be disputed by any fair-minded observer. He’s 2-2 in his last four fights and easily could be 1-3.

He was routed by Mayweather on May 4, 2013, and then took 13 months off before coming back to win a unanimous decision over Yoshihiro Kamegai in a surprisingly entertaining bout at the StubHub Center.

In March, he was matched with Keith Thurman in boxing’s return to prime time on NBC, and though he lost a wide decision, his spirit and competitiveness made it enjoyable to sit through.

Thurman is one of the game’s best fighters and hardest hitters, and it probably would have behooved Guerrero to take more time off. But he accepted what he believed to be a tune-up fight against journeyman Aron Martinez on June 6, and was outhustled and out-boxed.

He was dropped in the fourth and seemed to be beaten at every turn. The judges, though, gave him a split decision.

That led to the bout with the unbeaten Garcia. Personally, I’d have rather seen Thurman-Garcia or Thurman-Shawn Porter in the main event of boxing’s return to Fox for the first time since a Golden Boy Promotions card that went up against the Academy Awards that was billed as “Oscar against the Oscars.” Yory Boy Campas fought Anthony Stephens in the main event on March 23, 1998.

Garcia is about an 8-1 favorite, and deservedly so, to beat Guerrero.

But if there is one thing fans can count on is that Guerrero will do his best to push Garcia and make it a fight. He may take a pummeling, but he’ll be in Garcia’s face firing back.

Despite the odds against him, Guerrero believes he will win the fight. He’s been outgunned physically many times, but that belief in himself has taken him a lot farther than anyone would have believed when he lost for the first time to Gamaliel Diaz in a featherweight bout on Dec. 12, 2005.

Diaz never reminded anyone of Sandy Saddler, but Guerrero vowed it was only a blip on the way to what he promised would be a stellar career.

He’s not going to make the Hall of Fame, but it’s hard to dismiss him after what he’s done over the last decade-plus.

Still, Garcia predicted a fifth-round KO, which Guerrero welcomed.

“All I got to say is, if that's his prediction, come to do it, because I’m coming to fight,” Guerrero said. “I'm always up for that challenge and I love it, because I know he's coming to fight, too. If he's coming to KO me in the fifth round, that means he's coming to fight.”

He laughs off any suggestion he’s through, or could take a beating. He attributed his less-than-stellar performance against Martinez to not preparing properly and not having the right sparring partners. He said he’s improved the quality of his sparring partners in preparation for Garcia and thinks the difference will be obvious.

Those who criticize him and say he hasn’t earned a title shot are correct; he hasn’t. But that he’s in a championship fight says more about the sanctioning organization than it does about him.

He’ll gleefully accept the belt if he wins, but what Guerrero really wants is a chance and an opponent who is willing to slug it out.

“This is a tremendous fight for me to get back on top and to get back in the ranks,” he said. “To show the doubters and the media and everybody out there that Guerrero has got a lot left in him. I've been 100 percent prepared for this fight. We got that out of the way and it's time to take care of business on [Saturday] and I'm excited about it.”