By Mario Ortega Jr. –
Nearly one year removed from his last fight, undefeated Jessie James Guerrero makes his long-awaited return to the ring this coming Saturday night when he takes on veteran Jose Rodriguez Montemayor at the Adventist Health Arena in Stockton, California. The six-round flyweight bout will serve as one of the featured attractions underneath Gabriel Flores Jr.’s homecoming main event. The event serves as the inaugural showcase for Gabriel Flores Sr.’s G-Squad Entertainment promotional entity.
Guerrero, from the famed fighting family out of Gilroy, California, is primed and ready for Saturday night, considering he has been in camp since the fall of last year. Unfortunately for Guerrero, fight after fight fell through during that stretch: one in November, one in December and a third was first postponed, rescheduled and then ultimately canceled in January.
“It does mess with us,” explains Guerrero. “Are we going to fight or are we not going to fight? I am working my butt off in camp, cutting weight, gaining weight, cutting weight. For me, it’s a good thing that I walk around between these weights, so I don’t really have to worry too much about it. So I feel pretty good right now.”
Guerrero, the nephew of former world champion Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero, has continued to develop his craft in the gym, despite not getting the chance to show off his new tools before a paying crowd. Training under and alongside his uncle and sparring different types of fighters, Guerrero has been working hard away from the spotlight since the fall.
“Camp has been great,” says Guerrero. “We started camp off in October. I went out to camp with my uncle for his fight with [Andre] Berto. I was out there with my cousin Vic, who just fought in January. We were getting ready for our fights in November. We were out there working in a world championship camp with my uncle and nothing gets better than that. I was sparring with all different types of guys; lefties, righties, switchers, power punchers, counter punchers. I got all the work I needed.”
When the January bout, scheduled to take place in San Jose, California, was taken off the books, Guerrero (3-0-2, 3 KOs) almost immediately shifted focus to this Saturday in Stockton, which will now serve as just his second contest to take place in the United States.
“I took a week off and reset,” recalls Guerrero. “I came home for a week before going to camp again. I stayed in shape and worked on what I needed to improve on so I could be 110 percent for this fight coming up on March 16th.”
Guerrero’s pro ledger fails to include two bouts he won as a 16-year-old in Tijuana, Mexico that have yet to be recognized by official record keeper BoxRec. With only a year of amateur fights under his belt, Guerrero’s team, which includes his father Ruben, his grandfather Ruben Sr. and his uncle Robert, believed Jessie James could handle the move to the paid ranks shortly after completing his sophomore year of high school.
“A lot of people thought we were crazy,” admits Jessie James. “A lot of people told my grandpa…but from a coach with a lot of experience, doing this for over 40 years, he knows what’s best for me and my team knows what’s best for me. I was excited to go pro and I got a little glory while I was still at school. By the time I fought my fourth and fifth fight in Mexico, I would take two weeks off of school to finish the last two weeks of camp. I would go back and a lot of the staff would give me congratulations or tell me they were proud of me. Teachers had newspapers of me in the classroom. I got a good amount of glory for the next two weeks at school.”
In his last outing, Guerrero made his stateside debut in Fresno, California on a big Top Rank-promoted event. The night got off to a great start for the young Guerrero. “It was a great experience that I will never forget,” recalls Jessie James. “I remember walking out through that tunnel and seeing all those people. This is what it feels like. It all happened so quick, so I didn’t really look around. But after the fight, I could look around at all the people yelling and cheering, so it was a great excitement. Now I have that experience and got those butterflies out of the way, so now I know what that moment feels like, moving on.”
After the pageantry ended, Guerrero encountered new challenges and endured a learning experience before ultimately settling for a draw against Eduardo Alvarez. The first hiccup would be seeing his own blood as the result of an accidental headbutt in the first round.
“I didn’t even realize I had got cut until I got back to the corner,” says Guerrero. “My first pro fight, I got headbutted. My opponent’s head went right to my nose and my nose started swelling up and I thought I broke it. But this fight I had got cut and I didn’t notice until I got back to the corner and they told me and then I saw the blood on me. I handled it well and didn’t let it faze me. When I went back to the corner, I just felt like it was a dogfight now and that we were in for a good one.”
After battling his own blood, Guerrero also came up against an official he felt had it out for him. The end result would be a split decision draw where no judge scored it the same. “That whole night was a bunch of drama,” exclaims Guerrero. “The ref was a jerk to us the whole time. I couldn’t fight my fight, it just threw me off. Any little thing, I felt like he was going to take a point or find a way to mess with us. That’s why they say in four-rounders, you have to take them out easy. Anything can happen in four-rounders. That was the last four-rounder and I’m glad to move to six-rounders.”
With his uncle Robert’s hall of fame type career winding down, Jessie James is one of four Guerreros of his generation carrying on the family’s fighting legacy. His cousin Victor Guerrero is an undefeated middleweight and his cousins Maribel and Robert Guerrero Jr. just made their professional debuts this past Saturday in Tijuana.
“It is not just one of us in the hot seat,” says Jessie James. “There’s four of us. We see each other in the gym. We push each other. We watch and give each other tips. We have my uncle here helping with my cousins and I, and my grandpa. We are all in the gym and working, so it helps a lot. For my uncle, making the way and making a name in this sport, that does bring us a bonus to get into these fights. A lot of promotional companies want fighters with an amateur background, Olympians and national champions. So for us, with very few amateur fights, it is a big opportunity for us and the window is very small, so we are taking everything we can and pushing for it, to get our names out there.”
Adding to his motivation in carrying on the Guerrero family business, Jessie James will soon be welcoming a new addition to the clan, as he and his girlfriend Ariel are expecting their first born to arrive in June.
“I found that out the first week I was in Vegas for camp,” remembers Jessie James. “When I found that out, my switch flipped. Every single day, I put 150% into everything I did, day-in and day-out. No matter what it was, sparring or running…I said to myself I have a family to support now. When I had a one-on-one talk with my uncle, he told me that he could see the difference since I had been there and found out. He had seen it, that I had changed and in everything I did, I had stepped up. He was surprised and could see how hungry I was to do something. Coming from not only a world champion in this sport, but coming from my uncle, that motivates me and pushes me because I have seen him do it. Now that I have a baby on the way, I have to make a statement in the sport. ”
With a baby shower slated for the end of the month, and a fight scheduled on his expecting girlfriend’s birthday, March 2024 is lined up to be one of the most memorable calendar pages in the life of young Jessie James Guerrero. The first order of business comes this Saturday in Stockton.
“I am ready to put on a show. I want to say thank you for all my supporters, my family and friends and everyone that has been supporting me. It is not just hard on me when these fights fall out. I’ve got people buying tickets and taking time off of work to come, some coming from out of state, to come and just to have these fights fall out. This time around, it just adds that fire to me, that they came to support me and I can’t let them down. For months, we’ve been in camp and ready to fight. With the fight on my girlfriend’s birthday, I got to come home with the win. I’ve gotta show out.”
Tickets for the event, promoted by G-Squad Entertainment, are available online at Ticketmaster.com
Photo by Trini Guerrero
Mario Ortega Jr. can be reached at [email protected]
