Showing no ill effects from a one-year layoff, boxing superstar Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr. didn’t skip a beat in his return to the ring. The undefeated fighter retained his WBC Welterweight World Championship and captured the vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight World Championship with a dominant 12-round unanimous decision over Four-Division World Champion Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero on Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
At age 36, the universally regarded No. 1 pound-for-pound boxer in the world employed his superb defensive skills and a powerful right hand to effectively dominate the 30-year-old Guerrero.
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In his first fight since a May 5, 2012 win over Miguel Cotto. Mayweather scored the unanimous decision by the score of 117-111 three times.
Mayweather (44-0, 26 KO’s), of Grand Rapids, Mich., landed 60 percent of his power shots to Guerrero’s 28 percent and used his signature lateral movement in a 12-round master performance during which the challenger only managed to land 19 percent of his total punches thrown.
“The less you get hit in this sport, the longer you last,” Mayweather said. “I needed my father (trainerFloyd Mayweather Sr.) this night and we were victorious. The less you get hit, the longer you last. Continue to box. If the knockout came, I was going to take it.
“Everyone was saying that at the age of 36, I didn’t have it no more. My defense wasn’t sharp after the Cotto fight, but I have proved myself. Cotto is a future Hall of Famer. I’ve been in with some of the best. All I want to do is give the fans exciting fights.”
Mayweather leaned mostly on his speedy right hand throughout the fight, a weapon that the southpaw Guerrero (31-2-1, 18 KO’s), of Gilroy, Calif., couldn’t seem to see or react to. After the fight, Mayweather, who opened up a cut over his opponent’s eye in the 8th round, claimed that he hurt his most effective weapon midway through the fight.
Photos:Tom Casino/SHOWTIME