Guerrero's June 12 fight on ESPN in San Jose apparently will be against 15-4-1 Edwards

May 8, 1:43 PMSF Boxing ExaminerColin Seymour

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Robert Guerrero’s next fight still hasn’t been announced, but as I’ve been telling you, it apparently will take place June 12 in San Jose and will be televised on ESPN2.

Dan Rafael, well-placed at espn.com, is reporting that Johnnie Edwards (15-4-1, 8 knockouts) will be the opponent. A spokesman for Guerrero said Rafael might be right.

For Guerrero (23-1, 16 knockouts), needing to impress HBO and others after he yielded to a head butt and settled for a no-contest in his last fight, Edwards doesn’t seem like the ideal opponent the way previously rumored Rene Gonzalez would have been. Edwards has lost three of his past five fights, to a similar journeyman Carlos Rivera, to up-and-comer Yoriorkis Gamboa, and to unbeaten Ty Barnett, a 5-foot-10 junior welterweight who headlined Fight Night at the Tank in San Jose last September. Edwards’ two most recent wins came against a man with a losing record and against 38-year-old Freddie Norwood, but he did beat Norwood aggressively and impressively.

Still, there’s nothing Guerrero can do in beating this guy to make you or HBO say “wow.”

Rafael reports that Guerrero, 26, is in line for a junior-lightweight title shot against unbeaten WBO champion Roman Martinez on the undercard of an Aug. 22 Houston card on HBO, which could at least give Guerrero a championship belt at 130 to replace the IBF featherweight title he gave up to move up in weight. But that doesn’t mean the fight would be shown on HBO. Nor would Guerrero vs. Humberto Soto be a lock for HBO.

The ultimate fight for Guerrero at 130 would be against Jorge Linares (26-0), whose Saturday fight against lightly regarded Josaphat Perez in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, has been shifted to May 23 because of the swine flu outbreak. Rafael’s report that Linares might be fighting on the Houston card.

Linares is up there with Nonito Donaire and Juan Manuel Lopez in the best young champion in the world sweepstakes, and HBO probably is eager to showcase him. That would make Guerrero an ideal “other guy” for HBO. But it isn’t the scenario Rafael described.

It is a scenario, however, that would make us go “wow.”