Sunday 29 July 2012

Robert Guerrero v Selcuk Aydin

American Robert "The Ghost" Guerrero (30-1-1, 2, 18) successfully returned from over a year out of the ring by out pointing Turkish hardman Selcuk Aydin (23-1, 17) in a thoroughly entertaining bout for the WBC Interim Welterweight title.

In the early rounds Guerrero, who was making his Welterweight debut, used his speed and jab to out work his shorter and stockier opponent. The natural speed and the boxing ability of Guerrero combined with a high work rate allowed him to win the early rounds with out too much off a worry, though Aydin seemed like he was biding his time. Whilst inactive the Turk was accurate and his shorts had an air of truly raw power to them, especially the body shots.

By the middle rounds Guerrero had started to slow, the combination of his high work rate and the sapping body shots of Aydin and whilst Guerrero was still winning most of the rounds he was now being caught more, especially up close where Aydin was able to land his neck snapping upper cuts and more solid hurtful body blows. Guerrero may have bagged the rounds but he was starting to show signs of fatigue and continued to fade gradually as the bout went on with Aydin starting to out land him in the championship rounds.

Although comfortably up on the scorecards Guerrero was looking desperately tired going into the final round, Aydin, knowing the title was going to Guerrero if he didn't manage to score the stoppage went all out and seemed to hurt Guerrero a number of times. Although hurt Guerrero showed a lot of heart and courage to hold on and refuse to go down as he took a solid victory on the cards with scores of 117-111 and 116-112 (twice). Personally I felt the scores were a little wide but Guerrero, a former title holder at Featherweight, Super Featherweight and Lightweight did just enough to deserve a close victory.

Following the fight Aydin revealed that mentally he wasn't himself, years of boxing politics left him feeling drained going into this bout and as a result he lost. Guerrero on the other hand continued his pursuit for a mega payday with Floyd "Money" Mayweather (43-0, 26) calling out the unbeaten man who is generally regarded as the pound-for-pound top fighter in the world. Whilst Guerrero seems to want that fight I feel that Mayweather would put a real beating on the well liked Guerrero who is easily a level below Mayweather.

On the undercard unbeaten American Shawn Porter defeated Alfonso Gomez in an exciting 10 round affair (UD10) whilst British youngster George Groves defeated Francisco Sierra (TKO6) in anthother thoroughly entertaining bout.

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