In a war of words, you don’t compete with James Toney.
The former titleholder is the heavyweight champion of trash talking.
And then there is Robert “the Ghost” Guerrero. A young man of faith, he prefers to let his fighting do the talking.
Only he has found a worthy opponent in Eric “Mighty Mouse” Aiken. Like Guerrero, Aiken is a born-again Christian not into badmouthing opponents.
It all makes for an interesting fight card Sept. 2 at the Staples Center, once you get past Toney’s profanity and the vanilla statements of the other fighters.
Guerrero’s first world championship fight has him trying to wrest the IBF featherweight title from Aiken in the opener. Toney and Samuel Peter face off in a 12-round fight in which the winner will move to the top of the heavyweight rankings.
Listening in on a conference call that includes Guerrero, Aiken, Toney and Samuel Peter is a study in human contrasts.
On one side is Toney, whose rhetoric is X-rated. On the other side are three soft-spoken, humble individuals. Their own rhetoric is far less colorful, which interestingly makes them as difficult a quote as Toney.
But you are who you are. Guerrero and Aiken are God-fearing individuals who believe they answer to a higher authority. Neither is lacking in the confidence department, and yet they are unwilling to exchange blows until they are in the ring.
“I have respect for every fighter, from the 8-year-old amateur to the heavyweight champion of the world,” Guerrero said softly, “because I know what it takes for someone to get in the ring. I have respect for Eric Aiken because he paid his dues.”
“It’s not my personality,” Aiken said of Toney’s diatribe. “I don’t do trash talking.”
Yes, but trash talking sells tickets. Toney, who celebrated his 38th birthday Thursday by berating Peter during the conference call, knows that from experience.
Of course, when you’ve been written off because of your less than stellar physique, when you’ve had a title taken from you after tesing positive for illegal substances, when you’ve been referred to as a glorified, overgrown middleweight, the chip on your shoulder gets awful big.
That’s something Guerrero will hopefully never have to experience. But then, even as a 23-year-old he seems to have learned how to pick yourself back up, as he proved in the ring in June when he knocked out Gamaliel Diaz to avenge his only ring loss.
