Ruben Guerrero has called Floyd Mayweather ‘a woman
beater’ at a news conference.
It was hardly the classiest tactic, but trainer Ruben
Guerrero injected plenty of intrigue into his son Robert’s upcoming
welterweight title bout with Floyd Mayweather Jr. on Wednesday.
After a boring thank-you fest disguised as a news
conference in the MGM Grand’s Hollywood Theatre, promoter Oscar De La Hoya
invited Ruben Guerrero to the dais to say a few words. Virtually every other
speaker had gone on in a monotone fashion, thanking every entity possible,
name-dropping sponsors ad nauseum and predicting a great fight.
Ruben Guerrero, who has been trying to steal the
spotlight from his son by, among other things, challenging Mayweather’s father
to a fight, changed things quickly.
He ranted and raved like a madman, shouting about
Mayweather’s domestic violence conviction that forced the pound-for-pound top
boxer to spend 57 days in a local jail last year.
He started slowly, alluding to his challenge to fight
Floyd Mayweather Sr.
“I am what I am, and I’m the real deal,” Ruben Guerrero
said. “I don’t talk [expletive], man. I back it up. I back it up, baby. Any
time, anywhere, like I said.”
That elicited chuckles from a media audience that seemed
on the verge of falling asleep. But he was only about to begin. He then took
things to another level when he blasted Mayweather Jr. for his domestic
violence conviction, and said he must have learned such behavior from his
father.
“We’re going to beat up that woman beater, the one that
beat up his wife, man,” Ruben Guerrero said, firing his arms into the air. “[He
beat up] his wife in front of his kids. You guys like that [expletive]? You
like this guy, this woman beater? He must have learned it from his Dad. Women
beaters, baby. We’re going to beat that woman beater. We’ll see how he’s going
to like it. He’s going to get it from a real man. Damn women beaters. We’re
going to beat that woman beater down. I’m serious.”
Mayweather Sr. was not on the dais but was in the
audience. He shouted at Ruben Guerrero from his seat. He was enraged a few
minutes later and said, “Man, believe me, I’m going to [expletive] that
[expletive] up.”
The news conference ended and reporters were invited onto
the stage to interview the fighters.
Light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins, a partner in
Golden Boy Promotions, was speaking to Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard
Ellerbe when he noticed Mayweather Sr. charging toward the elder Guerrero.
Hopkins intercepted Mayweather Sr. until Mayweather Jr.’s
body guards intervened and moved the trainer away.
“I went from a troublemaker to a peacemaker over my
years,” Hopkins said, chuckling. “I remember [instigating] this stuff at these
press conferences. How did that change? I must be getting soft in my old age. I’m
getting soft.”
The younger Guerrero wasn’t upset by his father’s antics.
Robert Guerrero is normally a soft-spoken man, but he laughed as his father
ranted about Mayweather.
“I didn’t know he was going to do that, but I knew he was
going to get a little crazy,” Robert Guerrero said. “I didn’t know what he was
going to say or anything. He was just being himself. He’s going to do what he
does. I’m not going to argue with him or stop him. I’m just going to let him
go.
“No, [I’m not angry at him]. He’s his own man. I’m my own
man. Everybody’s their own man, so what he does, he does. What I do is what I
do. I’m not that type of guy to tell somebody, ‘Hey, don’t be doing that,’ or
this and that, especially when it’s my father and he’s a man. I ain’t going to
tell a man what to do.”
Hopkins has pulled many a stunt at a news conference, but
he said he didn’t think it was a wise move for Ruben Guerrero because he said
it puts yet another burden on his son’s shoulders. Hopkins said Robert Guerrero
already has enough to deal with facing boxing’s top fighter.
“A lot of time, the fathers put pressure on their sons to
box, and then to deliver,” Hopkins said. “The father should sit back and be the
trainer, or be the father, the wise one, the learned one, and let the emotions
of the fighter go up or go down. But when a fighter has a father or a sibling
in his corner and they’re doing more talking and hollering and getting
physically personal and challenging people, it takes away form the son. And it
gives the son another thing to deal with. Hell, he has enough to deal with. He’s
dealing with an undefeated fighter. He’s dealing with a Floyd Mayweather. He’s
dealing now with something else now, and that isn’t good.
“His father, to me, is building up an atmosphere where
the son will have to back it up. He has enough problems to worry about. I mean,
come on.”
Floyd Mayweather laughed it off. He was stoic when the
incident occurred and afterward said, “The fighters are the ones who fight, not
the fathers.” (Source)
