/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/12495387/004_floyd_mayweather.0.jpg)
Floyd Mayweather says that Saturday night opponent Robert Guerrero has used his wife's successful battle against leukemia as a way to "gain fans" with a "sympathy story," and Guerrero has responded.
"I think trying to gain fans by having a sympathy story every week, I don't think that's a good thing, but I'm glad that his wife was able to beat the leukemia. I don't feel nobody should go through a situation like that, but we all go through certain things. Our mothers, our fathers, our loved ones go through certain things. I just feel like, just to gain fans you are using your wife's story, you are using a sympathy story," Mayweather said.
"... I don't like that every week they keep selling the same story and selling the same story. It's time to talk about something different."
Now, this is a sensitive subject, and I don't have any personal interaction with Guerrero that would lead me to make any bold claims, so I will just say this: It's not the first time someone has had this reaction. That's a plain truth. It's the first time a fighter has said it, but not the first time it's been said.
Guerrero, for his part, is looking to turn it around:
"It makes me laugh. To gather sympathy? I don't need sympathy. I come to fight. We're fighters. Sympathy doesn't win fights. He is just worried about himself, how his image is looking. So when he says stuff like that... you know, at the end of the day what gets you through is talent - not sympathy. It's laughable, it makes you laugh. It just shows you where his head is at."
Whether or not this adds another bit of personal fuel to the fire between these two guys remains to be seen, and they'll meet up for the press conference tomorrow. But make no mistake: If this is a thing that Mayweather can use to get under Guerrero's skin, he will use it.