First published in the Fightful Boxing Newsletter, which you can check out every Thursday at Fightful.com!
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Robert Guerrero has announced his retirement after a lengthy and entertaining career just days after his latest loss on national television.
The former world champion took to social media to make the announcement after a professional career that has spanned 16 years and countless world championship reigns.
"First, I want to thank God for allowing me to have a wonderful career. I'm a kid from a small town in Gilroy, California, who made it to the mountain top of boxing. When I was a young kid growing up, I always believed in myself, but never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined a small-town kid like myself would be fighting in front of millions of fans.
I was blessed to win multiple world titles. A boxer's career is a long and tough road. Many tears were shed, lots of blood and tons of sweat. Many miles were traveled, thousands of rounds sparred, and none were easy and nothing was ever given to me. I earned everything I got the old-fashioned way. I never ducked anyone and fought the best fighters in the world. I fought my way through every obstacle to make sure my fans enjoyed every second of every round of my fights."
Guerrero started his career unbeaten in his first 17 fights, winning his first title, the NABF featherweight title, in 2004 in just his 15th fight. Guerrero lost the title a year later but bounced back nine months later, winning the IBF featherweight from Eric Aiken after Aiken's corner retired after the eighth round.
After his first pro loss, Guerrero went undefeated for nearly eight years, defeating the likes of Andre Berto, Joel Casamayor and Selçuk Aydın. This set up the biggest fight of Guerrero's career: Floyd Mayweather Jr. Guerrero, the WBC interim welterweight champion, challenged Mayweather, the WBC and lineal welterweight champion on Cinco De Mayo 2013 weekend.
Guerrero lost that fight via unanimous decision and his career never recovered. He lost three of his next five fights, losing to Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia for the WBA and WBC welterweight titles, respectively, in that span.
His last fight was just this weekend when he got stopped in the third round against Omar Figueroa in a PBC on Fox card from Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, New York. Guerrero was knocked down five times in that fight. Despite the last couple of years not being the best for Guerrero, the former world champion has had a long reputation of accepting any and all challenges and providing fans with a lot of big fights. In his last 10 fights, he faced opponents with a combined record of 270-10-4 going into their respective bouts.
The 34-year-old, nicknamed "The Ghost," retires with a 33-6-1 (2 NC) record and having held the IBF featherweight, IBF junior lightweight, WBA and WBO interim lightweight and WBC interim welterweight titles. Guerrero is also very much involved in cancer research after his wife Casey had a bout with cancer, a battle that Casey was fortunate to have won and is cancer-free to this day.
