Robert ‘The Ghost’ Guerrero will fight May 18 at HP Pavilion
Gilroy – Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero gets the same question all the time.
“The first thing everyone asks is, ‘When are you going to fight in San Jose?'” the World Boxing Council’s (WBC) No. 7-ranked featherweight fighter related.
Guerrero often replies, “Next fight,” to appease his fans. Now, the fighter can say it and mean it.
The Ghost’s publicist Mario Serrano announced Wednesday that Guerrero will be the headlining fighter of May 18’s Fight Night at the Tank event at HP Pavilion in San Jose. It will be the 23-year-old’s long-awaited Bay Area debut as a pro fighter.
“I’m back,” Guerrero said during a morning workout Thursday at the Gilroy Community Youth Center Gym on Sixth Street. “I’m hoping to see all of Gilroy out there.”
The 10-round rumble will be Guerrero’s first since his Dec. 2 North American Boxing Federation (NABF) Featherweight title split-decision loss to Gamaliel Diaz of Mexico at Lemoore’s Tachi Palace Hotel and Casino. Guerrero entered the fight as the WBC’s No. 2-ranked featherweight with an undefeated record against the seventh-ranked Diaz.
The loss was the reflection of a rough time for Guerrero. There were tensions between Guerrero’s co-manager Shelly Finkel and his promoter Dan Goossen of Goossen Tutor, the main promoter of the Fight Night series. The situation led Guerrero to file for arbitration with the California State Athletic Commission to terminate his agreement with Goossen Tutor.
On top of that, Guerrero felt he wasn’t prepared to fight in his usual style – with speed and explosiveness – against Diaz.
“I was in great shape, but the thing was my training had made me too slow. I felt like I was in sand,” Guerrero said. “I could see the opportunities, but I was a half-step slow.”
Since then, the situation between Finkel and Goossen has been smoothed over and Guerrero remains under contract with Goossen Tutor. To get back on track inside the ring, Guerrero came back to Gilroy to train with his father Ruben, the man who helped get him to his early success.
“To be in here with my father, I feel really good,” Guerrero said. “I haven’t felt like this in a long time.”
The two have been doing boxing training at the gym on Sixth Street. In addition to that, the Ghost has been taking nine-mile runs up the steep incline of Cañada Road and doing Navy Seal circuit training twice a week in Aromas.
“He’s just going back to the old way he was, fast and with speed. (Against Diaz) he was too straight up,” Ruben Guerrero said. “He’s got to do that, it’s originally what made him.”
Thursday, it was just father and son in the small gym where the Ghost started his career. Robert goes through his stations while Ruben observes. Later on, the two get in the ring. Robert wears the gloves and Ruben wears the mitts. After one round of taking powerful blows to his hands and getting knocked off balance by his son, Ruben smiles.
“I’m 170, 180 pounds,” he says. “He’s a featherweight.”
Alert and tenacious during his training session, Robert Guerrero said the Diaz fight was a wake-up call.
“My best attributes are my legs, my strength, my speed, my height and I’m a southpaw,” he said. “But that night, I was an ordinary fighter taking shots.”
The Ghost’s first loss dropped him five spots in the WBC featherweight rankings. But Serrano says if Robert Guerrero rebounds with a win at Fight Night, he’ll be on a Showtime fight card June 30. And although the loss was a setback, Robert Guerrero hopes to set things right in 2006.
“I’m hoping to win a world title,” he said. “I’m gunning for it.”
The Ghost will head to Los Angeles to training camp in the middle of next week to prepare for the fight.
