Focused Guerrero is ready to roll

LAS VEGAS – Robert Guerrero could knock out every lightweight in the top 10, move up and clean out the super lightweight division, claim a spot atop the pound-for-pound rankings and he'd still be known to most people as "The boxer with the sick wife."

Guerrero's courageous decision to abandon a world title shot to be with his cancer-stricken wife, Casey, in her darkest hour made him a hero to millions regardless of whether he won another fight.

The good news is that Casey Guerrero has been cancer free for the last year. As Guerrero was preparing for a workout the other day, a steady stream of passersby stopped when they saw him. They smiled, offered a hand, and inevitably asked the same question.

"How's your wife?" they'd inquire, one after another.

Guerrero looked as if he were auditioning for a toothpaste ad as he relayed the positive outlook for his wife. There's something to be said for not having to wake up in the morning and worry that the person you love may be gone soon forever.

Removing that burden has led to the best training camp of Guerrero's life and, I'd bet, will result in the finest performance of his career when he meets Michael Katsidis on April 9 as the co-feature of an HBO Pay-Per-View card in a 12-round lightweight bout.

Reporters routinely – ridiculously – ask fighters how their camps have gone. And fighters routinely answer in the affirmative, as if they'll ever say they had a bad camp and are concerned that less-than-ideal preparations will negatively impact their performance.

Guerrero gave all the expected answers in the past, but it's only now, that he's spent a few months thinking of boxing and nothing but boxing, that he realizes what he was missing previously. He looks much huskier than he has in the past and said that people who haven't seen him for a while think he must be a super lightweight at this point. The reason, though, is that with Casey's illness behind her, hopefully for good, Robert has been able to focus solely on boxing for the first time in longer than he can remember.

"It's a matter of having the right training camp and having the proper training, the proper diet and putting everything together," Guerrero said. "The last three years, it's been half-stepped. Whether I wanted to believe it at the time or not, it was half-stepped due to my wife being sick and being there. You know how that is. You miss meals. You're not 100 percent focused."

That's not a good way for a librarian to do a job, but it's an absolutely horrendous way for a boxer to do it. That Guerrero was able to perform at such a high level given the conditions he was dealing with speaks volumes about his talent and skill set.

He's won titles at featherweight and super featherweight and posted a 28-1-1 record with two no-contests, all the way caring for a seriously ill spouse during his most important matches.

Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer called him "an amazing human being" and "an amazing fighter." His trainer, Bob Santos, said he was amazed that Guerrero juggled things as well as he had, but he believes in all his heart that Guerrero wasn't at his peak for many of those fights.

"I don't want to disregard other fighters or downgrade them by saying Robert wasn't prepared or that he didn't take them seriously, because he did, but he didn't have the ability to commit to boxing the way he is committing now," Santos said. "I was there and saw it first-hand. It's one thing to say that you can handle it, like Robert did, but it's another thing to live it like I did with Robert. I saw the toll it took on him. He would have to sleep in a chair at Stanford Hospital or on the hospital floor. He couldn't run at the time he was supposed to because of it. He would miss a lot of meals.

"He did the right thing by focusing on his family, without question, because family has to come first. But strictly from a boxing standpoint, when he's missing time to take his wife to get a blood transfusion or to be with her at her doctor appointments, it takes away from preparations. As great as Michael Jordan was, if he didn't have time to practice his free throws or work on his dribbling skills, he wouldn't have given himself the opportunity to be the player that he ultimately was."

Guerrero will face a challenge the likes of which he hasn't seen before when he meets Katsidis, who is probably the closest thing to a successor to Arturo Gatti as there is in boxing.

Katsidis is coming off a ninth-round stoppage loss to the great Juan Manuel Marquez, but he dealt with his own tragedy. His brother, Stathi, died about a month before his fight with Marquez.

Katsidis elected to fight despite the tragedy and dedicated the bout to his brother, but Guerrero can appreciate the problems Katsidis faced perhaps better than anyone in the sport. And that's why he expects Katsidis to be better than he's ever been when they meet.

"I think he put on a good fight, but I'm not going to judge Katsidis by his last performance," Guerrero said. "Having the problems he had, with his brother passing on and not going in there mentally right, it takes a lot out of you. Being in the situation myself with my wife and going into fights, I know how it is. It's tough. I can relate to that and I'm expecting a better fighter on fight night.

"The physical aspect is a big part of it, but it's not just physically, but mentally that is the tough part. I would bet he's going to be mentally focused and looking to redeem himself after that loss. When a fighter can fight with a clear mind, it makes everything better and I know that's going to make him that much more dangerous."

Don't be shocked, though, if the level of Guerrero's game jumps three or four notches. He's physically maturing and hitting his peak at a time when, mentally, he's at the strongest he's been since his early days as a professional.

He's dedicated himself to improving the most basic fundamentals of his game.

"I never went into a fight where I didn't work hard, but it's hard to concentrate on getting better and developing yourself during training camp when you have so many issues in your life," Guerrero said. "In the past, half of my mind was here, half of it was here and just this little piece here was thinking of boxing.

"All of that stuff I was going through, let me tell you, it takes a lot out of you. But that's why I am excited now. Most importantly, Casey is doing great. She's healthy and looking so well. Because of that, I've been able to go to a camp and do the things that other boxers have been doing forever and ever to improve. I've dedicated myself to boxing and nothing about boxing and I think that's going to be pretty obvious when you see me."