Last night on Friday Night Fights, highly touted middleweight prospect Fernando Guerrero was shockingly KO’d by Grady Brewer. It was actually a light middleweight bout, as Guerrero had dropped down in weight, and the two were fighting for the vacant NABF 154 lbs strap. Brewer scored a fourth round TKO win after first sending Guerrero to the canvas with a combination barrage, and then doing more damage after Guerrero got up with a big uppercut. Guerrero falls to 21-1, while Brewer, all 40 years of him, is back on our radars after another upset win.
Guerrero isn’t the first, or even the second big middleweight prospect, hailed as a future champion or kingpin, to be derailed in recent memory. Let me call upon Lebron James here… not two… not three…
There have been 4 KO losses suffered by big name middleweights receiving tons of exposure. Daniel Jacobs was the first to go down, being pummeled by Dmitry Pirog. Then fell David Lemieux to Marco Antonio Rubio, and the comebacking James Kirkland to little known Nobuhiro Ishida. Finally it was Guerrero’s turn, and whether for the move to junior middle, overlooking an opponent or simply not being as good as advertised, he too became a KO victim.
Of course, all or any of these four fighters could still rise to the top of their division, win a title and do some damage. But for the time being, each and every one of them is back in rebuilding mode, and will need to string together more than a few big wins to even get close to the lofty positions they had been in previously.
See our updated top 10 middleweight division rankings here to see how the division looks today.
