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Eric Aiken, left, takes hit from Robert Guerrero during the first round of their IBF featherweight championship boxing match in Los Angeles, Saturday, Sept. 2, 2006.
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Gilroy's Guerrero pounds way to title
By Dylan Hernandez, Mercury News
September 3, 2006
LOS ANGELES -- From the shoulders of his trainer, Robert Guerrero looked down on a world that was suddenly different.
Guerrero, the 23-year-old featherweight from Gilroy nicknamed "the Ghost," was no longer a prospect -- he was the International Boxing Federation's new champion.
Guerrero took Eric Aiken's will, then his belt, forcing him to quit on his stool at the end of eight one-sided rounds Saturday night at Staples Center. Guerrero used a brutal body attack to break down Aiken, who was left with a badly swollen left eye and what he said was a fractured hand.
"I'm overwhelmed," Guerrero said. "It hasn't sunk in yet. This is what I've worked for my whole life."
The triumph preceded James Toney's controversial split-decision loss to Samuel Peter in a World Boxing Council heavyweight title-elimination bout, the result of which Guerrero said, "That's why I don't leave it in the hands of the judges."
But Guerrero (19-1-1) didn't need to worry about completing the bout's 12 scheduled rounds. He was ahead 80-71 on two scorecards and 79-72 on another. Aiken was penalized one point in the eighth round for excessive holding, his futile attempt to stop the punishment.
When the combatants were entangled in a clinch in the final moments of the round, Aiken (16-5) was noticeably grimacing over Guerrero's shoulder. Aiken's trainer, Jerry Page, had seen enough.
"His hand was hurt and it didn't like he was going to turn it around," Page said. "He was taking a beating, so we stopped it."
Guerrero didn't realize what had happened until he heard a voice in his corner say, "It's over."
Guerrero leaped onto a turnbuckle and later onto the shoulders of trainer John Bray. Guerrero's father, Ruben, who introduced him to the sport as a 9-year-old, ran into the ring with his arms raised.
"I just can't believe it," Ruben said. "It was a long road. All that hard work way back when. . . ."
And the work in recent months.
Bray had prepared Guerrero to avoid Aiken's reputed power not by maintaining a distance, but by closing it.
Bray had studied tape of Aiken and noticed that he was most dangerous when he could get full extension on his punches. He also thought that because Aiken often stood flat-footed, he wouldn't deal well with being pushed back.
Bray was right.
But not even he thought Guerrero would be able to walk through Aiken the way he did. Though the 5-foot-10 Guerrero was only one inch taller than Aiken, he looked much bigger. And much stronger.
Guerrero, fighting out of a left-handed stance, went shoulder-to-shoulder with Aiken starting in the second round, blasting away at the champion's body with crushing hooks and sending him retreating. The pattern would hold for the remainder of the bout.
Aiken went into full retreat in the fourth round and flurried in the last 10 seconds to steal the round on the charitable scorecard of Steve English. The round was the only one he would win on any card.
Aiken's eye started to swell a round later. Aiken tried to come back in the sixth round by landing a big right to Guerrero's head in the opening minute, but Guerrero was unfazed.
Guerrero continued to stalk Aiken, and by the end of the seventh round, Aiken balled himself into a cocoon along the ropes. He was done one round later.
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