Robert
”
The Ghost
”
Guerrero’s split decision loss to Gamaliel Diaz Friday night at
Tachi Palace Hotel and Casino might have been an unexpected blow,
but not a devastating one.
Gilroy – Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero’s split decision loss to Gamaliel Diaz Friday night at Tachi Palace Hotel and Casino might have been an unexpected blow, but not a devastating one.
Diaz’s win earned the seventh-ranked fighter out of Mexico the North American Boxing Federation (NABF) Featherweight title. Had Guerrero won, the Gilroy native wouldn’t have been far from competing for a world title. But now, Team Guerrero will have to do some reassessing.
“It changes in the fact that we’re going to have to step back a little bit,” said Mario Serrano, Guerrero’s publicist. “As being ranked No. 2, he’ll still most likely be in the top 10, which makes us four or five (winning) fights away from being right back in the position we are right now.”
Going into Friday’s fight, Guerrero (16-1-1, 9KO’s) was unbeaten and had won five fights in a row. Before that, his May 2004 bout with Julian Rodriguez ended in a draw.
Even after watching replays of the fight over the weekend, Guerrero’s trainer John Bray is still convinced that The Ghost is for real.
“He’s a 22-year-old kid. He has lots of time to work on things and grow,” Bray said Monday. “I have complete faith in the kid and I think he’s going to continue to fight and do big things. This is just a bump in the road.”
Bray’ own unscientific experiment helped him better analyze the fight as he watched it over again.
“What I did is I watched (the fight replay) regular as a spectator,” Bray said. “Then I turned the volume completely off and I studied it.”
Without the noise of analysts making their observations, Bray noticed a few things in the Showtime replay.
“I started to realize Robert didn’t get hit as much as the crowd and everyone thought he did,” he said.
In Bray’s eyes, the tape also showed The Ghost’s stance as too wide and exaggerated and the volume-punching Diaz getting away with some underhanded moves, such as hitting with his elbows and forearms.
“He fought a dirty-clean fight, clean enough so the ref didn’t say anything, but it was enough to damage Robert,” Bray said. Regardless, Bray still gave credit to the scrappy Diaz.
“He came to do it and he did it.”
Now Guerrero’s team is aiming to get the fighter back in the ring for a bout in late February. Serrano doesn’t see an off-night like Friday’s happening again and put the fight into perspective.
“People have got to remember that Robert Guerrero is the only person ranked, from heavyweight to flyweight, he’s the only one that’s 22-years-old. Everyone else is 24, 25, 26,” Serrano said. “He lost by one point on his worst day.”
