LAS VEGAS -- 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."
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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."
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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."
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