So continues our marathon coverage of one of the biggest fights of 2013, Floyd Mayweather vs. Robert Guerrero on Showtime pay-per-view May 4. Previously: putting Mayweather-Guerrero in context; the undercard, previewed; keys to the fight; a full preview of the main event. Next: the Ultimate Guide.

This installment of TQBR’s regular TQBR roundtable is dedicated to Rubens everywhere -- both Ruben Guerrero, the father of Robert Guerrero, and delicious Reuben sandwiches. We’re not really sure if we like his son’s chances against pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather, Jr. but you have to admire a guy who, when everyone else wants to kiss Mayweather’s ass, instead calls him out as a convicted wife beater. Again, not sure about the hat/shades combo, but there’s a ring to “we’re going to beat that woman beater, baby, and see how he’s going to like it.” Also Reuben sandwiches are really tasty and I’m going to get one/several when I’m in New York in June. Anyway, on to the roundtable.

A hoped-for fan-friendly brawl between junior welterweights Mauricio Herrera and Ji-Hoon Kim on ESPN2's Friday Nights Fights instead turned into a cringe-inducing, one-sided mismatch as Herrera teed off on Kim at will en route to a 10-round unanimous decision.

The special edition of FNF aired Thursday and might've served as a nice warm-up to the big weekend for the sport if stepping into the ring with Kim wasn't the boxing equivalent of what happens when Albert Pujols steps into the slow-pitch softball batting cage. And Herrera might not be able to punch very hard, but he is a crafty scrapper. By the 1st round, it was clear that this one could get ugly.

All Kim had was gameness; a heavy hitter at lightweight, his punches didn't seem to hurt Herrera, outside a cut he opened in the 7th, and he lunged clumsily forward, telegraphing every punch, square as square can be for Herrera's return fire. He might've won the 5th. A generous judge gave him three rounds. In the 8th, he cornered Herrera and threw more than 100 punches, by CompuBox's count, but only landed 18, and Herrera was in charge anyway, landing more punches at about a 50 percent rate. Had Kim's corner been on the ball, they would've stopped the bout before it got very far, but all you have to do is look at Kim's fighting abilities to know that they're not on the ball.

Herrera will make good fights with any contender and belongs back on TV, any TV, soon, while Kim only belongs on TV against someone who is 100 percent terrible.

On the undercard, former lightweight contender Miguel Acosta lost a unanimous decision to Miguel Gonzalez. Didn't watch it live. Just on-passing.

So continues our marathon coverage of one of the biggest fights of 2013, Floyd Mayweather vs. Robert Guerrero on Showtime pay-per-view May 4. Previously: putting Mayweather-Guerrero in context; the undercard, previewed; keys to the fight. Next: a staff roundtable.

Ultimately, while Floyd Mayweather-Robert Guerrero is a big event because Mayweather is the biggest pay-per-view attraction there is and arguably the best fighter in the world; and is a big event because of what it means for the business of boxing and a shift in the landscape from HBO to Showtime; and is a legitimate fight between two top-5 welterweights; it feels like something smaller, like something in-between other things. Some of that is because Guerrero is the least broadly recognizable or popular Mayweather opponent of the past six years. (If the promotion was meant to elevate Guerrero, it hasn't gone as planned, in part because Guerrero hasn't fully donned the "good guy" hat he was meant to wear, in part because all the documentary/marketing material has emphasized Mayweather so heavily.) Some of that is because he figures to be the least competitive opponent since then, or maybe since Juan Manuel Marquez in 2009.

Yet I don't see Guerrero as quite the 5-1 underdog he is in some books. Maybe he's got a better chance -- 4-1, at most 3-1. It's not because Guerrero is faster or stronger or bigger or smarter or better in any conceivable way than Mayweather, that he has any kind of advantage he can exploit. If Guerrero can win, it comes down to a style match-up, and how that coincides with the 36-year-old Mayweather's advancing age.

So continues our marathon coverage of one of the biggest fights of 2013, Floyd Mayweather vs. Robert Guerrero on Showtime pay-per-view May 4. Previously: putting Mayweather-Guerrero in context; the undercard, previewed. Next: a full preview and prediction.

In all the years I've been producing "keys to the fight" for big pay-per-views, where I evaluate how the combatants' mental and physical qualities match-up, I've never had an occasion where I could say one fighter was superior in all 10 categories. With only one possible exception where Guerrero might come out ahead, maybe two or three where it's relatively even, that is the case for Mayweather-Guerrero. As such, we'll abandon the usual "Edge: Mayweather" or "Edge: Guerrero" format and just do an evaluation of each fighter's merit in all the categories.

(The don-keys to the fight.)

So continues our marathon coverage of one of the biggest fights of 2013, Floyd Mayweather vs. Robert Guerrero on Showtime pay-per-view May 4. Previously: putting Mayweather-Guerrero in context. Next: keys to the fight.

Once again we find ourselves less than a week out from a big pay-per-view boxing match. Some things have changed – Floyd Mayweather, Jr. is fighting on Showtime instead of HBO. But, as they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Robert Guerrero is new, but it’s hard not to feel like we’ve been here before. Nobody seriously doubts Mayweather’s chances. It’s déjà vu all over again. At least the undercard should be entertaining. Perhaps as entertaining as that picture. And yes, Rocky vs. Clubber Lang totally deserved to be on PPV.

So begins our marathon coverage of one of the biggest fights of 2013, Floyd Mayweather vs. Robert Guerrero on Showtime pay-per-view May 4. Now: putting Mayweather-Guerrero in context. Next: the undercard, previewed.

Some of the basics of the Floyd Mayweather story leading into his battle Saturday against Robert Guerrero are unchanged: He's still the consensus best fighter in the world, his opponent is a considerable underdog and he's still the premier pay-per-view attraction in the sport. It's the world around Mayweather that has shifted dramatically.

Manny Pacquiao, Mayweather's rival for so many years for best/biggest, is no longer a rival for either title, having lost two in a row, the second a savage knockout by Juan Manuel Marquez of the variety that can end careers. Mayweather has switched trainers from uncle Roger to father Floyd, Sr. And Mayweather has departed the company of HBO, the undisputed industry giant, for the company of Showtime, which is now challenging HBO's supremacy with the move that could be the richest for any athlete ever by the time the deal concludes.

It is understandable, then, that much of the focus on Mayweather-Guerrero has been on how the bout has been promoted by Showtime and parent company CBS; whether Mayweather has reached a saturation point and how much he interests people as he now stands inexorably separated from the name "Pacquiao;" and on what's next for him after Guerrero.

We'll examine the merits of Mayweather-Guerrero here some, but reserve some of that for later coverage. For right now, we'll mainly try to place Mayweather-Guerrero in the proper overall context.

(Apr 27, 2013; Brooklyn, N.Y -- Danny Garcia [green trunks] and Zab Judah [black trunks] hug after their junior welterweight bout at the Barclays Center. Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports)

It takes a weekend of boxing like the last one to overshadow a weekend like the one up next, headlined by the world's biggest pay-per-view attraction and consensus best fighter, Floyd Mayweather. Everywhere you looked, there were closely-fought, dramatic, action-filled bouts featuring top fighters getting seriously challenged, foremost among them (in no particular order) Sergio Martinez-Martin Murray; Danny Garcia-Zab Judah; Amir Khan-Julio Diaz; and Bermane Stiverne-Chris Arreola.

It's too bad, then, that approximately half of the viewing audience couldn't watch both of the competing HBO and Showtime cards. With so many people having DVRs in their homes, it's easy to assume that everyone does. They don't -- as of the last survey in November, only about half of all U.S. homes do. Maybe the people with HBO and Showtime subscriptions are skewed a little higher than the average, but DVRs are expensive to own in an economy like this one, and not everyone can afford them. So determined are HBO and Showtime -- and, often in conjunction, Top Rank and Golden Boy -- to wage full-on war (as Scott Christ recently wrote, it's no longer a Cold War) against each other that they don't care how many fans they snag so long as they hurt the other guy. In the short-term, the competition can boost both sides' products. In the long-term, they're still dividing a very sizable contingent of the boxing audience in a way that is hard to imagine not doing damage.

That's just about the only down note you can strike when reviewing the weekend that was, though. Sure, you could castigate a couple young heavyweights feasting on the carcasses of old heavyweights, and we'll mention one of them below, not so much the other. But if you like boxing, you almost surely found an awful lot to enjoy about what you witnessed.

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Our friends over at Yardbarker sent us the video above where they did an interview with Robert Guerrero in advance of his welterweight showdown Saturday with Floyd Mayweather on Showtime pay-per-view. Check it out. We'll begin our own comprehensive coverage here ASAP -- I'm just returning from a weekend out of town -- but this will get you started off nicely. It also gives you a handy hashtag (#BEATFLOYD) to use on Twitter if you're either A. rooting for Guerrero; B. rooting against Mayweather; C. playing Pink Floyd's softball team this weekend; or D. all of the above.

(Post sponsored by Yardbarker.)