Robert Guerrero’s nickname is the Ghost and yet it was his opponent that was hard to find in the ring.

Guerrero 27-1-1 18KOs, won a ten round unanimous decision against Joel Casamayor 37-5-1 22KOs, on the under card of the Marquez vs. Diaz II bout in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

Casamayor looked at this fight as perhaps his last chance to demonstrate he could still hold his own against a fighter with a future as a champion. He did nothing to advance that intention.

At 39 years old with his best days behind him, he took on a good friend in Guerrero, 27 who he had mentored some years ago.

Two judges scored the fight 98-89 with the third seeing a 97-90 contest. From the lopsided scores you would have assumed it was a dominating performance by Guerrero, but you would be wrong.

Landing only an average of 5 punches per round, Casamayor looked like he was waiting for Guererro to make him have to work. Guerrero barely obliged him.

After the tenth and final round, during which Casamayor actually knocked down Guerrero on what appeared to be nothing more than a hard jab, the referee congratulated him for engaging his opponent for once in the fight.

Guerrero landed more punches but as a percentage of his total thrown he didn’t fare much better than Casamayor at 18%. The vast majority were jabs without much behind them.

There were two explanations given for his lackluster showing, by the TV announcers on the HBO PPV telecast. One was that Casamayor is known to be a head butter and Guerrero stayed away in fear of that.

The second explanation put forth by Emanuel Steward was less flattering to Guerrero. He looked at the fight and saw Casamayor as ripe for the picking, if only Guerrero would have stepped in and thrown a few punches in combination once he landed jabs that he kept throwing and landing.

Based on his jabs landing, Guerrero won the fight. This was nothing more than a victory rather than what he hoped would be a demonstration of his readiness to take on a more top level boxing opponent.

When Guerrero was knocked down late in the tenth and final round, he looked stunned after having been so kind to Casamayor throughout. His corner had bragged that their fighter had never been knocked down in the ring or out of it in training.

Welcome to the canvas young man. Try and explain why you fought at the pace of your aging and almost skill-less opponent and got tagged as the fight was winding down.

Guerrero was the sentimental favorite on the night since he had taken time away from the ring to care for his wife who contracted cancer. He helped care for the couple’s two young children and assisted his wife fight her own fight. Her cancer is now in remission.

For Golden Boy this couldn’t have been a pleasant sight. They were touting this under card for the Marquez-Diaz rematch as if it was a gift from God.

Jorge Linares dominates Rocky Juarez in unanimous decision

In the earlier fight between Jorge Linares and Rocky Juarez, the crowd was listless and started booing due to the lack of action in the ring.

They had to endure the same pace and lack of hard punching in Guerrero’s win against Casamayor.

Used with permission of the author.

Paula Duffy is a national sports columnist for Examiner.com and the Huffington Post and regularly comments on sports/legal matters for radio affiliates of ESPN and Fox Sports. She founded the sports information site, Incidental Contact, is the author of a line of audio books designed for sports novices and in her spare time practices law in Los Angeles. 

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