Robert Guerrero has had a long, successful career, but at 34 years old, some boxing pundits are starting to call him a gatekeeper of sorts. Guerrero is not happy about that title.
In a conference call promoting his upcoming fight against Omar Figueroa, Guerrero said being called a gatekeeper for boxers to go through in order to take the next step in their careers serves as motivation.
"Oh, it gives a lot of motivation, you want to be known as one of the top fighters in the division and one of the best and to be categorized as a gatekeeper or the stepping stone for this guy, if this guy if he can get past this test he’s on his way," Guerrero said. "No, you want to be the guy that they’re on their way to, so it does motivate you. It gets you excited, gets you out there to work hard and really look back at everything and think about what you’ve been doing in the ring and being smart about things so it really does light a fire under you. You get a lot of fighters who go out there and say oh, I’ve had the best camp ever, this and that and I’ve been doing this and blah, blah, blah but 90% of the time the adversity is not there they don’t change anything. They just keep going about their thing so when your back’s against the wall and you got to fight your way out that’s when you got to use your head. You got to be smart. You got to say hey, let’s see what’s going on, let’s see why we’re in this corner and let’s take care of business."
Guerrero has held the IBF featherweight title twice, from 2006-08, and the IBF junior lightweight title from 2009-10. Additionally, he held the WBA interim and WBO interim lightweight titles in 2011, and the WBC interim welterweight title from 2012-13.
The former world champion has lost four of his last six fights, losing to the likes of Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia and Floyd Mayweather. Guerrero vs. Figueroa will take place at the Nassau Coliseum on July 15 in the main event of a PBC on Fox card.
