Mayweather-Guerrero fight almost gets dad-vs.-dad preliminary bout

LAS VEGAS — The Mayweathers are back, and for this fight they have company.

More than eight months have passed since Floyd Mayweather Jr. walked out of a Las Vegas jail after serving nearly 90 days for his role in a domestic violence case involving the mother of his three children.

Mayweather (43-0, 26 knockouts) returns to the ring Saturday night to defend his World Boxing Council title against Robert Guerrero.

Both boxers are trained by their fathers — Floyd Mayweather Sr. and Ruben Guerrero. And as far as the elder Guerrero was concerned, Wednesday’s news conference was fertile ground to revisit the younger Mayweather’s crime.

“We’re going to beat up the woman beater,” Ruben Guerrero, a former pro boxer, said into a microphone at the MGM Grand. “He must’ve learned that from his old man. He beat up his wife right in front of his kids.”

The fighters stayed relatively calm during the news conference, but an undercurrent of hostility reignited during the boxers’ stare-down as Robert Guerrero exchanged sharp words with members of Mayweather’s entourage.

Then Floyd Mayweather Sr., a former title contender who was 28-6-1 with 17 knockouts as a pro, rushed the dais and confronted the elder Guerrero.

The two trainers nearly came to blows.

“That right there could’ve happened, but I wasn’t going to let that happen,” said Mayweather Sr., who was originally left off the stage at his son’s request for fear of such hostilities.

“The guy was saying, ‘Hit me here, hit me here.’ It ain’t no promotion. This is real, real as it comes. He tells me to hit him in the jaw. I’m not going to. I don’t fight no more, but I still know how to use my hands and they would’ve called these things concealed weapons.”

Then a Mayweather associate, within minutes, posted on Instagram the elder Guerrero’s pro boxing record of 0-7, with six knockout losses.

And it is Mayweather Jr.’s comfort with the finer points of boxing that makes the undefeated welterweight champion a 7-1 betting favorite over Guerrero (31-1-1, 18 KOs) in the Showtime pay-per-view bout.

“When he was up there talking, I was texting,” Mayweather Jr., 36, said. “I don’t need to fight his father. I was young at one particular time. I’m a lot older now, a lot wiser. I know what I bring to the table. I can’t conduct myself in a disorderly fashion.

“It’s OK to trash talk and give people a bit of excitement, but there’s a time and a place for everything. I’m ready to fight. I don’t need to bad-mouth his father. Only God can judge me. If I did or didn’t do a crime, I served my time.”

On Wednesday, Mayweather Jr. told of enduring his time in jail by reading fan mail, doing 1,300 push-ups a day and withstanding the “breaking down” of his body after eating only candy and potato chips and drinking soda from the commissary.

“One of the stories my counselor told me was of a hostage who was put in a box like a coffin,” Mayweather Jr. said. “While the other hostages around him went crazy, he learned the language the guards were speaking and became friends with the roaches in his box.”

Mayweather Jr. said he resolved that if that hostage “can make friends with roaches in a box, I can do my time and last these days.”

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

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