Guerrero takes latest setback in stride

Because Guerrero is the poster child for horrible luck. First, his career was derailed for a couple of years as he stood by his wife as she battled cancer not just once, but twice. After his wife disease went into remission the first time, Guerrero fought a couple of times before taking another extended break when the cancer came back. With doctors telling his family the coast was clear for the foreseeable future, Guerrero got back in the ring.

He was just over a week away from the biggest fight of his career — a Saturday night Pay-Per-View bout at the HP Pavilion in San Jose against Marcos Maidana for the WBA Super Lightweight title.

A win against Maidana Saturday would have vaulted Guerrero onto the national scene, he would have started moving up in weight to take on bigger "name” fighters and everything was starting to finally go Guerrero way.

Until he hurt his shoulder in training. He told RingTV.com, the online site of the popular boxing magazine "The Ring,” an MRI revealed he partially tore a tendon in the rotator cuff of his left shoulder and was facing at least a six-month rehab, which, once again, puts his promising career on hold.

Yet despite all the setbacks, Guerrero remains positive and upbeat, even in the face of his latest battle.

"I feel good. I feel good about everything,” Guerrero told RingTV.com. "I’m just excited that everything is in motion and that I can get back into the ring and get back in there and start training hard. That will get me ready to go full-force when I can later on.”

Guerrero is truly one of the good guys in the fight game. By all appearances, the 28 year old is a solid family man, a God-fearing man and not at all a loudmouth or knucklehead, like many fighters are. If there was anyone who could ever whine, "Why me?” it’s this guy.

And yet despite bad news after bad news, he maintains his sunny disposition. The rest of the hard-core boxing world knows Guerrero is one of the good guys. The Boxing Writers Association of America recognized Guerrero with the Bill Crawford Award for Courage in the Face of Adversity award.

Now it’s time for the rest of the sporting world to recognize Guerrero’s unbelievable tenacity for life in the ring and out. Unfortunately, he’ll have to wait awhile, again, for that to happen.

While video games may not, technically, belong in a sports column, I don’t care: it’s my column and I write what I want. Besides, if poker is considered a sport, so is video gaming.

All right, with that being said, I am coming up on the one-year anniversary of buying an Xbox 360. After sitting on the video game sidelines for many years, I figured my birthday last year was the right time to get back into gaming.

I had always played video games growing up. Of course I had Atari, which was made even better by the fact my uncle worked for Atari and gave us all the games — including games that were months away from coming on the market. Back then, I guess he didn’t have to worry about my brother and I copying Pac-Man and selling them to our friends back in the day.

But after Atari, I always seemed to get the "other” game console. Back in the early 1980s, when the first generation Nintendo and Sega consoles came out, my family chose Sega, while Nintendo went on to become a world-wide phenomenon. Later, I got a PlayStation and followed that with a Nintendo Game Cube (I know, another bad decision).

I then got out of the console scene, mainly because the controllers were too intimidating — I have since gotten over that fear. I’m not what you call a hard-core gamer. I just like to have fun.

"Where is this all leading?” you may be asking yourself. Well, here it is: despite all the attention, millions of copies and billions of dollars Activision’s "Call of Duty” series has garnered, I have to say, I prefer Electronic Arts’ "Medal of Honor” game.

For those who don’t know, EA’s "Medal of Honor” released a new first-person shooter game last year that attracted a lot of attention — for all the wrong reasons. In the game’s online play, players could choose to fight as a Taliban soldier, which, for obvious reasons, drew a lot of negative attention, forcing the company to change the name to "Opposition forces.” The game is set in Afghanistan. Who else would we be fighting?

Anyway, "MOH” did not do nearly the business as "Call of Duty: Black Ops” which came out in time for the Christmas season.

And it sold a ton. I even got a copy as a Christmas gift. I have now played both games and can say I prefer "MOH” better. I’ve recently completed the campaign (read: single person) for a second time and enjoyed it as much as the first time I played it.

I’ve completed the campaign on "Black Ops” as well and even though I started to play it a second time, I haven’t taken it out of the case in months.

I think the biggest difference is "MOH” deals with a real conflict in modern times, while the "Call of Duty” series started with World War II and is now up to the Vietnam era, which is where most of the "Black Ops” game takes place. I guess I just like modern day weaponry as opposed to that used in the 1960s.

I know both Activision and EA both have other FPS shooter series that deal with modern- day battles, and each has a new game coming out this year. I haven’t played either of the "COD: Modern Warfare” series from Activision, or EA’s "Battlefield” series. I think I’ll eventually give each of them a turn, but I’m guessing I may enjoy "Battlefield” more.

All right you gamers: what do you think? "Black Ops” or "Medal of Honor”? If you haven’t played both, you can’t comment. If you have, be honest.