Guerrero defeats Aiken for IBF featherweight title after bout
was stopped in the eighth round Saturday
By MARC DAVID SPORTS EDITOR
Los Angeles – Eric Aiken never had a ghost of a chance.
Title fights are not supposed to be this easy. But Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero was so dominant that he pitched a shutout in the eyes of two of three judges (and most at ringside) before the fight was stopped after eighth round.
When Aiken’s corner threw in the towel at 7:51pm Saturday at the Staples Center, Guerrero was the International Boxing Federation featherweight champion.
Guerrero had enough left in his tank to race to the neutral corner, climb the ropes and raise his arms skyward while facing the large Gilroy contingent in attendance. They roared approval for their favorite son.
Trainer John Bray, who once sparred with former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, carried Guerrero on his shoulders around the ring. Ruben Guerrero was handed his granddaughter, Savannah.
Other members of his corner put the IBF belt around Guerrero’s waist. It kept falling down presumably because Guerrero’s waist is so small. Meanwhile, the champion grabbed his daughter and kissed her. He did the obligatory ring interviews.
And yet two hours later when he met the rest of the media, the fight result still hadn’t sunk in, Guerrero admitted.
“It’s going to take a while,” Guerrero, 19-1-1 with 12 knockouts, said of his digesting his world title. “At the moment of realization, I heard someone in the corner say it was done. It was exciting. Just a charge of energy went through me.”
Earlier, Guerrero had squeezed all the energy out of Aiken, a game but outclassed fighter. There was some talk that Aiken had broken his hand. In fact, a one-paragraph statement attributed to Aiken and handed out after the fight said his right hand was broken. Co-trainer Jerry Page confirmed that Aiken’s hand was hurt but did not say it was broken.
“He had problems with his hand,” Page said. “It’s happened before. With the way the fight was going, it did not look like he was going to turn it around, so why absorb more punishment.”
The game plan was for Guerrero to use his size and strength by fighting Aiken on the inside and to go to the body of the Marysville, Ohio, boxer. After an opening round in which each fighter showed caution, Guerrero began to get inside and consistently and win the best of the encounters.
By the fifth round, Guerrero was giving Aiken a boxing lesson. About the only blemish on his performance came in the third round when Guerrero was warned for pushing Aiken’s head down. Judge Steve English gave Aiken (16-5) the fourth round. The other judges had the rounds 8-0 in favor of Guerrero before the fight was halted.
“Everything Guerrero was doing affected me,” Aiken, 26, offered. “I broke my right hand. I am not taking anything away from him. All glory to him.”
As the fight wore on, Guerrero continually went to Aiken’s body to wear the former champion down. As the end neared, he was holding on and trying to survive rather than attempting to mix it up with Guerrero.
“The plan was to break him down with body shots,” Guerrero, 23, said. “The plan worked. He was looking for the referee a lot (hoping to have Guerrero warned for low blows). I knew that was coming after watching films on him.
“He started holding a lot. I would hit him with body shots and he would hold on. He basically went into survivor mode.”
That lasted until the end of the eighth round when the futility of it all appeared to catch up with Aiken and his corner.
“We knew Aiken was a dangerous fighter on the outside, so the plan was to go inside and smother him,” said Bob Santos, Guerrero’s co-manager. “If he wasn’t holding on, he would have been stopped earlier. If we didn’t go to the body, we wouldn’t have won the fight. Robert is a vicious body puncher and (trainer) John Bray got him to do that.
“It was a dominant performance. We feel Robert is at an elite level. I’ve been watching him day in and day out. He has sparred with (WBC lightweight champion) Diego Corrales and Manny Pacquiao and other top fighters. They all leave the ring saying this kid is destined for big things.”
The plan is to keep Guerrero busy, Santos said, and have him back in the ring in November or December. The hope is that a title fight can be booked in the Bay area.
“Fighting at the Staples Center was an awesome feeling, like a big adrenaline rush,” Guerrero said. “It’s going to be great bringing the title back home. It’s what the Bay area needs, a world champion. Certainly I would like to defend my title there.”
