WEAVER: The Ghost’s moment is now

I almost hesitate speaking of this. The journalists’ jinx can and will strike at any moment. Recognizing that, admitting it and respecting it, maybe, pads any consequence.
In the face of it, however, I will say that Saturday is, without a doubt, the most significant day of Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero’s boxing career.
Superstisions are a moot point with Guerrero, though. Hexes and curses aren’t involved in Guerrero’s journey. His, destiny, he believes, is more faith-based.
It’s difficult to sugarcoat it, however. This bout has a potential to be the make or break match.
His opponent – Selcuk Aydin – is relatively unknown in the United States, but make no mistake, the Turkish “Mini Tyson” packs a whollop, and just like Guerrero, is out to prove he can back the hype and deserves world championship fights against the sports’ pound-for-pound greats.
Two hungry fighters. Two angry fighters who want to silence naysayers. It’s a shame there isn’t more of a buzzing curiosity surrounding this fight.
“The significance of this fight is huge. It’s bigger than people realize it is,” Guerrero said Wednesday.
The Ghost has had a few of those make or break moments over that past three years. His course to the top has been blocked, altered and re-routed. He has had more starts and sudden stops than a car driving on a street loaded with signal lights.
Resiliency is almost an insufficient word to describe it. Guerrero unselfishly put his career on hold in February 2010 while wife Casey put up a fight of her own against leukemia. She won that battle with the help of a bone marrow transplant and is now cancer free.
Guerrero stepped back into the ring two months later and defeated Roberto Arrieta by technical knockout – the first of three victories in 2010. He easily handled the aging, yet crafty, Joel Casamayor in July of that year and then controlled a 10-round bout versus Vicente Escobedo.
All was great against Michael Katsidis last April, as Guerrero unloaded his fiercest performance yet.
But then, the shoulder injury, an injury that shelved what was supposed to be the career-maker last August against Marcos Maidana.
Athletes are often discarded, forgotten and shoved into the basement of the publics’ mind after so many bad breaks. It isn’t uncommon for the athletes to crumble under similar circumstances, or, in some cases, never recover from injury or personal strife.
But Guerrero has bounced back time and time and time again. You will rarely catch him complaining. He sees every piece of of this passage through life as a blessing. There is no outward display of woe is me. As brother Randy Guerrero said, the fire comes out when he steps onto the canvas and his opponent is dancing inches away.
A successful surgery and 15 months later, Guerrero, who has made a climb from featherweight, where his career began, to welterweight, finds himself in an even better position to take the boxing world by storm. He is technically one victory away from a fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. – negotiations and boxing business will play out of course.
“In boxing, every fight is make or break,” Guerrero said. “But this fight here is going to catapult me into those mega fights. (Aydin) is the best fight out there and I take advantage of those opportunities.”
Should he get by Aydin, Guerrero, instead of searching out the marquee bout, will most likely entertain offers he has longed bargained to get. He will be the hunted instead of the hunter.
“You can never say, when a guy is in his prime, that a fight is make or break,” Guerrero’s manager Bob Santos said. “Is it a huge opportunity? Yes, of course. It doesn’t get any bigger.
“The saying that we’ve had is, ‘When God closes doors they can’t be open. When God opens doors they can’t be shut.’ God has guided Robert to this point. He has gone through all this adversity to be prepared to jump up two weight classes, to get that win, to get Mayweather. God is the master planner.”
What happens next in the ring, physically speaking, is all up to Guerrero at this point. It is now his responsibility. He must perform. He must dominate. He must win.
“I just have to win, take care of business and it will all work out,” Guerrero said. “This is a big fight for me and it’s one that I have to win. Boxing media and boxing fans are probably the most ruthless. You lose one fight, you’re down to the bottom of the barrel. You have to keep winning and that’s what I’m going to do Saturday.”