Robert Guerrero's horoscope Tuesday in the San Francisco Chronicle successfully predicted the Gilroy welterweight's contract to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. on May 4 in Las Vegas would come through.
That it did Tuesday, in a chain of events that included Mayweather's huge new contract with Showtime, which will air the bout on its pay-per-view arm.
Mayweather becomes the most auspicious opponent for a Northern California boxer since the Bay Area’s Carl “Bobo” Olson fought Sugar Ray Robinson twice in the mid-1950s.
The Guerrero-Mayweather bout had been rumored since shortly after Guerrero's Nov. 24 upset of Andre Berto, but it had remained mysteriously in limbo until Tuesday's announcement of the Showtime deal cleared the picture and cleared the way for the fight.
And the horoscope for Aries, by Christopher Renstrom, fit right in. "A situation that should be settled is still in play. Go with the current of events. You could come out with more than you had coming in."
For Guerrero, who turns 30 on March 27, it was beginning to seem too late. He'll be a decided underdog, but it's not inconceivable he could pull off the upset of the world's most highly regarded active boxer.
Mayweather has been virtually untouchable as a pro fighter, and is the top pay-per-view drawing card in the sport, too. He also was the 2006 runnerup on ABC-“TV’s Dancing With The Stars.” But he has fought only four times in the past four years and spent three months in prison in 2012 after his super-welterweight victory over Miguel Cotto on May 5, 2012.
Guerrero is coming off his first million-dollar purse, the brutal victory over Andre Berto on HBO, which is where most of Mayweather's big fights have been staged up to now.
That performance propelled Guerrero (31-1-1, 18 knockouts) to No. 10 in The Ring magazine’s ranking of the world’s top fighters, pound-for-pound. Mayweather is No. 1. Bay Area fighters Andre Ward and Nonito Donaire are No. 2 and No. 5, and are more firmly entrenched as elite in boxing fans’ minds than Guerrero, who is better known for his leukemia-stricken wife Casey’s’ survival. That’s been the fight of his life.
A life-long resident of Gilroy, Guerrero has won world title belts at 126, 130 and 135 pounds, and currently holds the WBC interim welterweight title he won July 28 when he easily outpointed hard-punching, previously unbeaten European champion Selcuk Aydin in San Jose, completing a three-year transition from elusive lightweight to aggressive welterweight.
Since departing the featherweight ranks, Guerrero has scored knockdowns in most of his fights as he has pounded out unanimous-decision wins over former lightweight great great Joel Casamayor, hard-hitting Michael Katsidis and crafty fellow Northern Californian Vicente Escobedo.
Even after his two knockdowns of Berto, the left-hander’s featherweight image persists, that of a fluid, lanky, clever, defense-minded technician. He’s definitely “the other guy” in the match with Mayweather.
For these reasons, Guerrero’s parity with Mayweather in size and power may catch a lot of boxing people by surprise, perhaps including Mayweather himself. Mayweather had trouble with a similarly bulky left-hander, Victor Ortiz, in 2011, and Guerrero is far better defensively than Ortiz and maybe as good offensively.
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