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" LAS VEGAS \u2014 We want the kid from Grand Rapids to get knocked the hell out. But it never happens, and the prize fighter keeps winning, seventeen years and 43 fights later. And our crazy-ass Floyd Mayweather Jr. addiction makes him the highest-paid athlete in the world. And on Saturday night our stupidity \u2014 and his growing riches \u2014 will begin another infinite loop when Mayweather sucks us in yet again. A million or so people will pay $69.95 for the privilege of watching the pay-per-view welterweight championship fight. This is what the Floyd Mayweather Jr. era of boxing is, a cynical one. But he&amp;#039;ll surely win. &amp;quot;Money&amp;quot; is a splendid boxer, one of the best ever, and he is fighting Robert &amp;quot;The Ghost&amp;quot; Guerrero, an OK capable guy, who is rising two weight classes and stretching way above his skill level.  There is always the chance that the man-boy from Grand Rapids will lose. Manny Pacquiao, his greatest rival \u2014 the guy he never fought, and probably never will \u2014 has lost his last two fights, suffering a brutal knockout in December, which seems to have knocked him out of the sport, or at least to a tentatively scheduled fight in frigging Macau later this year. Mayweather \u2014 God help us \u2014 stands as the best fighter of the era. How long can it go on? Watching, from ringside, Mayweather&amp;#039;s last three fights, it is obvious he is getting slower afoot. He is thirty-six now and he doesn&amp;#039;t move backwards and laterally as he once did. But he is cunning. Man, is he cunning. Each round is a story in itself, and Mayweather is narrating it beautifully. Look into Guerrero&amp;#039;s eyes on Saturday \u2014 he will look confused, trying to figure out what just happened, how Floyd slipped that punch or came off the ropes at a weird angle, or gave that crazily quick counter-right. He is one of the best \u2014 if not the best \u2014 ever at seeing punches coming and avoiding them, but lately he has looked a little, just a little, less sure of himself. (Not unlike the slow demise of Pacquiao.) So, yeah, there is a chance he will go down, or lose a decision. Maybe. In his last fight, a year ago, against Miguel Cotto, who is a very good fighter but can be plodding, Mayweather couldn&amp;#039;t always escape. That was another sign of slippage, of a master&amp;#039;s skills eroding. Guerrero, 30, (31-1-1), comes in at angles, and is a solid body puncher. There is also the jail time question: After the Cotto fight, Mayweather spent two months in the Clark County Detention Center (&amp;quot;When you&amp;#039;re locked up is just do push-ups and read and write-write your fans and write to your loved ones. That&amp;#039;s all I really did&amp;quot;) for the 2010 assault of Josie Harris, the mother of two of his children.  And, so, it is this kind of over-thinking, of convincing oneself that an opponent has a chance at victory, that feeds the beast of Floyd Mayweather Jr.: 43-0. It&amp;#039;s hard to care \u2014 really care \u2014 about the kid from Grand Rapids. We wish we could. His handlers want us to love him. They are promoting him for the next 30 months, and need to build a story that people care about. Mayweather signed a six-fight deal with Showtime (CBS is the parent company) that could be worth $200 million. And so, in the run-up to the first fight, we have been treated to two documentaries (one of them listed Mayweather as an executive producer), four episodes of All-Access: Mayweather vs. Guerrero, a reality show to hype the fight, and getting a healthy dose of Mayweather on various Showtime/CBS platforms. But it&amp;#039;s never easy to sell a guy who tosses around $100 bills and who was convicted of beating up a woman. Boxing gives us a look into things we don&amp;#039;t want to examine. Could a loss on Saturday humanize him, change the way we perceive him? Could a loss make him interesting to people who gave up on boxing back in the Tyson era? And so, on Saturday night, we will watch \u2014 just one more time, right? \u2014 the kid from Grand Rapids, who lives in Vegas now, try to win his 44th fight. Yes, we will watch and learn. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/sports/a22485/mayweather-guerrero-fight-preview/>