By Robert Morales

Robert "The Ghost" Guerrero had just stopped Edel Ruiz in the first round on the January 2009 undercard of the "Sugar" Shane Mosley-Antonio Margarito welterweight title fight at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Guerrero was all smiles as he sat in a chair on press row talking to reporters. He was happy to have beaten Ruiz. But the bulk of his happiness came from having received a phone call from his wife, Casey, during the weigh-in for that fight. She told her husband she had just been declared in remission from her leukemia, which she was diagnosed with in November 2007.

Unfortunately, the leukemia returned that August, not long after Guerrero beat Malcolm Klassen to win the super featherweight world championship; Guerrero had already won a featherweight belt. 

"It's just like getting your head knocked off, knowing what you have already been through with her and seeing what she had been through," said Guerrero, who will take on Joel Casamayor on July 31 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on the undercard of Juan Manuel Marquez-Juan Diaz II. "It's like, 'Here we go again.' "It was tough to find out she relapsed again and that you have to go through the whole process. You can only go through so many treatments when your body stops taking the chemotherapy. Chemo only works so long. As you relapse, the sickness gets immune to it and it keeps coming back."

There was only one thing left to do.

"That is when they started talking about the bone marrow transplant," Guerrero said Wednesday via telephone from San Carlos, Calif. "That is when it started getting really scary, when they say you have a 50 percent chance of making it, and a 50 percent chance of not making it. It is stressful and scary preparing for the transplant."

Well, Casey Guerrero received a bone marrow transplant in February, and it is working tremendously.

"She's doing excellent," said Guerrero, who started dating his wife when they were in junior high growing up in Gilroy, Calif.

"Thank God, she's doing good. She just had another doctor's appointment last week and they said she was cancer free and everything is starting to take well."

Immediately after the transplant, Casey Guerrero had to see the doctor every day.

"Now she is down to one doctor visit per month," said Guerrero, who has two kids with his wife - a 5-year-old daughter named Savannah and 3-year-old Robert Jr. As heart-wrenching as this whole episode is, it becomes even more incredible when realizing that the donor found to be a match for Casey Guerrero is from Europe.

"Thousands and thousands of people are on the registry from all over the world," Guerrero said. "They put in all their blood types and genes and funnel it out until they find the match."

Guerrero, 27, said he is active in trying to get as many people to enter themselves into that registry. 

"Unfortunately, some people don't find their match," Guerrero said. "The sad thing is leukemia is more prevalent in children. It's hard to see children suffer. They are waiting and praying that they get a donor. That is why we are trying to put the word out that the more people that get on the registry, the merrier."

Speaking of praying, the Guerreros are both very religious. But even with all the heartache, they never questioned that faith. Not for a second.

"There was never a doubt in my mind that God was there," Guerrero said. "That is what got us through. That is what got me through the stressful nights thinking about it. That is when I'm at peace, when I pray to God, knowing he is going to take care of it.

"You have to have a plan, and he is the master planner. There are those bumps in the road he puts there for a reason. You get through them and it makes you even stronger."

A documentary centering on the trials and tribulations of the Guerreros will be released in the spring. According to Mario Serrano, Guerrero's publicist, it will be shown at the Sundance and Cannes film festivals.

"It's going to be big," said Serrano, who said the last bit of filming for the documentary will take place at Guerrero's fight with Casamayor.

Giving up The Belt

Shortly after Guerrero found out his wife had relapsed, he gave up the title he won from Klassen so he could be with her as she prepared for the bone marrow transplant. Guerrero attended classes on the subject with his wife, and was with her hand-in-hand as she prepared for a procedure that was needed to save her life. Relinquishing the championship wasn't easy, but it was the right move for Guerrero.

"It's always a tough decision where it's something you have worked for your whole life and you have it right there in your hands and you have to let it go," he said. "God shuts doors and opens them for a reason. He shut down that one, and opened nother one. Now look, I'm in the running at 140 pounds."

After eight months off, Guerrero got back in the ring in April and stopped Roberto David Arrieta in the eighth round in Las Vegas. That was in the lightweight division. He said he is hopeful of getting another title shot at either lightweight or super lightweight, the weight at which he will take on Casamayor.

"I feel really blessed and honored to be where I am right now," he said. "God has blessed me with a lot of talent. I like being in the position of being able to put out what He has put into me."

Eye-Balling Alexander

Timothy Bradley said that although he feels better at 147 - which, he said, is more his natural weight - he is definitely going back down to 140. If he had his druthers, he would fight either Pacquiao or Mayweather after Carlos Abregu in July 17. But if neither materializes, Devon Alexander is the target.

"I still have unfinished business (at 140)," Bradley said. "I have Devon Alexander I want to take care of, I have Amir Khan I have to take care of, and (Marcos) Maidana. We can do a hat trick. These guys, I want to face.

"Devon and his team have been woofing a lot and we need to make this fight happen for boxing and boxing fans." 

Bradley (25-0, 11 KOs) noted that fight would be for three world titles. He has one and Alexander will have two if he successfully defends his two against Andriy Kotelnik on Aug. 7 in St. Louis. 

"It's a huge fight," Bradley said of the three belts being on the line. "We haven't had a huge fight like that in a long time. When I win this fight (against Abregu), I'm calling him out."

Road to Title Short For Jacobs

The undercard to the aforementioned Marquez-Diaz rematch will feature Daniel “The Golden Child” Jacobs taking on Dmitry Pirog for a vacant middleweight world title. Somewhat amazing is the idea it took Jacobs only two years and seven months as a pro to get a shot at a major championship.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be fighting for a world title so early in my career,” Jacobs, 23, said Wednesday via telephone from his training camp in the Poconos. 

One of the reasons Jacobs (20-0, 17 KOs) has gotten this far so quickly is because he has stayed inordinately busy. During his first year as a pro, he fought 13 times. He fought five times in 2009 and twice so far this year.

Although Jacobs said he knew he would have to slow it down as the fights got bigger, he really enjoyed fighting so often that first year. He said it was something new and exciting. He got paid because he was no longer an amateur, and he was on TV.

“All the credit is due to my manager, Al Haymon, and Golden Boy Promotions,” Jacobs said. “They really moved me in the right direction. A lot of people have the talent and the skills to be a world champion. But if you don't have the right people in your corner, you are going to end up like a Winky Wright where it takes you six or seven years to get there.” 

Indeed, it all came in a hurry for Jacobs, who grew up in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, N.Y. He has done well to not get too caught up in the totality of the situation. So he says. 

“All I'm thinking about is Pirog, Pirog, Pirog,” Jacobs said. “I thought about the ring walk several times and I thought about us going toe-to-toe and the people going wild and the adrenaline going through my body.

“I haven't really let the hype get to me. I've just been focused on training hard and preparing well for this fight.”

It is Too Laugh

Keith Kizer, executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, said he has found it amusing to read how many people think the commission doesn't want to do out-of-competition urinalysis because of selfish reasons

“People say we don't want to test out of competition because the big fight might get canceled,” he said Tuesday. “Wait a minute. We tested Pacquiao and Mayweather at the end of December when we thought the fight was going to be March 13.”

Kizer also said we shouldn't expect the commission to soon adopt any kind of blood-testing for HGH until it is proven to be much more effective than it is now. He said of thousands tested, only one – a rugby player – tested positive for HGH. That player did not contest it.

But Kizer said if an athlete did put up a fight, it would be very difficult to have the charges hold up in any court because there are too many in the field who believe the current blood test for HGH utilized by the United States Anti Doping Agency is not reliable.

“There are a lot of people in the industry,” Kizer said, “who say it is going to give you false negatives or false positives.” 

Robert Morales covers boxing for the Los Angeles Daily News, Long Beach Press-Telegram and BoxingScene.com