August 27, 2011 was the night when the world of boxing was supposed to tune into the excellent matchup between two-time world champion Robert "The Ghost" Guerrero and world-class bruiser Marcos Maidana, a fight that would no doubt match two exciting fighters in a battle of will and grit. The winner would definitely have found themselves in line for a big fight down the road, or even a lucrative rematch with each other. Either way, their stocks would have sky-rocketed nonetheless. Unfortunately, Guerrero and Maidana never had their chance to take that step after the fight was derailed a week prior to taking place when Guerrero suffered a torn rotator cuff. That fight was never rescheduled and now Guerrero finds himself as the odd man out, with no meaningful fight to showcase his talent.
Maidana didn't need to wait long for a meaningful fight, thanks in part to his last two fights against Amir Khan and Erik Morales, which were both Fight of the Year candidates. He now finds himself facing Devon Alexander next weekend, a fight which may ultimately get him an outside chance of fighting Floyd Mayweather in the future. Guerrero was one fight away from really arriving as a force to be reckoned with, an emerging power-player positioning himself for a similar payday down the line. Following his surgery Guerrero inexplicably started a very vocal campaign to land a fight with Mayweather, then later Victor Ortiz, and to the surprise of nobody but maybe Guerrero himself, he didn't land either man.
Though Guerrero might not deserve a fight with Mayweather or Ortiz, he is deserving of the same opportunity he had prior to the injury, a fight against a good opponent to showcase his skills. At first, I thought that Guerrero was a victim of negligence from his own promoter, but when Paulie Malignaggi came out saying that Guerrero turned down a fight on the Mayweather/Cotto undercard, it seems that the culprit is Guerrero himself. At this point, it's increasingly clear that Guerrero needs a reality check should he intend to continue his career. Boxing, unlike basketball or football, doesn't pay any attention to holdouts like Guerrero.
Victor Cayo, Humberto Soto or Malignaggi would've presented him with winnable fights on a televised stage; any one of them being the right kind of opponent he would need to fight in order to put him in contention for big fights. These opponents would bring out the better qualities of Guerrero and if he runs right through them, then there would be no excuse not to try and match him up with the Ortiz's and Berto's of the world. Ultimately, these fights and similar fights won't take place thanks in part to his newly acquired sense of entitlement, and because of that, Guerrero finds himself sitting on the sidelines.
In this era where high-risk fighters find themselves immediately on the edge of obscurity, it would be wise to clear out as many fighters as possible to gain notoriety through activity. Beat everyone until your desired opponent either fights you or turns you down, making you "feared." When you become "feared," then the networks talk about you, the reporters ask fighters about you, and your stock goes up without throwing any punches. That's how Antonio Margarito, Paul Williams, Marvin Hagler and Joe Calzaghe found their way into the limelight and that's the key for Guerrero. With plenty of worthy opponents available in talent-rich divisions, in addition to him being affiliated with one of the more powerful boxing promoters, there should be no reason for Guerrero to sit out if he is so willing to fight. While swallowing his pride may be a tall order in of itself, it's a whole lot better than the endless press releases about how great of a fighter he is despite his best wins as of late being against perennial stepping-stones.
The Ghost from Gilroy is presented with the biggest challenge of his career at this point. If he can't get over his ill-acquired abundance of self-importance and just decide to continue his career right where it left off, then he may find himself in a state of boxing limbo, like Ronald "Winky" Wright. Opportunities in boxing don't come for everybody, so it's time for Guerrero to ditch the press releases and the Twitter wars and make his impact in the ring, where he wasn't having any trouble doing that to begin with.