Middleweight prospect Fernando Guerrero (18-0, 15 KOs) will fight Ishe Smith (21-4, 9 KOs) tonight in the main event of an eight-bout boxing card at Desoto Civic Center in Southaven.

The hard-hitting, exciting 23-year-old from Salisbury, Md., has built a fan base in north Mississippi after fighting eight times at the Fitzgerald’s Casino in Tunica. Guerrero vs. Smith and two 10-round undercard bouts will be televised live on Showtime at 10 p.m.

How do you feel about returning to Mississippi to fight?

It makes me feel like Mississippi is my hometown. Actually that’s where I had my first fight and even though Salisbury has been my hometown and all the Salisburians are there for me.

Mississippi is just like it.

It’s just crazy because at least people in Salisbury have a reason to go to my fight because they know me and they’re my friends and all that stuff. But it’s even more amazing for people that didn’t even know me and stuff like that and then they’re just going over there (to the Fitzgerald Casino in Tunica).

They’re always having a full house over there, and hopefully those same people and more will come to see me.

What can fans expect from your fight with Ishe Smith?

I think of myself as a boxerbanger.

Whatever happens, Fernando is always going to get the job done. The louder they scream, the more people there is, the more action they’re going to see. I think it’s going to be a great performance, actionpacked.

Have you watched much tape of Smith?

I haven’t watched a lot of tape of Ishe Smith. I just noticed something with all my fights and all my confidence building and stuff like that. I mean it does help. I’m not going to say I don’t even know who he is because that wouldn’t be true.

When I step in the ring, I’m a different fighter. He’s a different fighter, too. I think with my amateur background (140 fights), I wouldn’t have any problem figuring him out and stuff like that. He’s a good fighter so I just have to go in there and execute, not worry about what he can do, just worry about what I can do.

How do you think you’ll match up with him?

I think I’ll matchup good.

The thing is, I think it’s just a builder for me to become even a better champion. I’ve fought guys that come straight forward and they notice that’s a mistake because that’s not the way to fight Fernando Guerrero. And I also fight guys that try to outbox you.

I showed that I could box with (decision wins over) Ossie Duran and Gabriel Rosado

With (Smith), it’s just more of preparation for me, becoming a champion and putting all my styles together. I don’t think I only have one arsenal. I don’t think that I’m just a banger. I think that I’m a boxer as well.

To me, he seems like a guy that wouldn’t mind just going 10 rounds. I’m not content with that. I’m only going to be content with a win but I want to give a good outing. I want to give a good show. People don’t come just to see an event. They come to see a performance. I think a great performance, even if it’s not with a knockout, it’s an attempt of a knockout.

When and why did you start boxing?

I started boxing at age 14. It was the fact, and this (goes for) all the kids and everyone else that don’t know what they want to do and stuff like that or they’re trying to find themselves, it was just me trying to find myself. I was the guy that in school I had straight A’s and I never even thought about one-on-one sports like that.

I tried soccer, basketball, volleyball I tried everything and I wasn’t the best. I was always like the second (best). Like, if I was to race, I was always the second fastest. And I just hated losing but then in boxing, I didn’t like it all. Nobody likes to say that they like to get hit, that’d be crazy.

But I kept doing it because I’m like ‘man I kind of quit everything. I’ve got to push something.’ And me being the crazy person that I am, I kind of picked the hardest sport to stick with it. It takes hard work.

I was trying to find the easy way out and I know in my times I really learned that you have to work hard if you want to be a champion – in anything, even in school or whatever, everything is hard.

Many pro boxers have come from poverty. Do you think growing up poor in the Dominican Republic played a role in your determination?

I never knew that I was poor until I came to America. I thought that everybody was poor. We had no shoes. We had to get our own water. We had to grow our fruits, our food, everything.

We would walk miles, We’d carry a bucket of water on our head.

So when people see me training, when I run 9, 10 miles, they’re like ‘Man, you’re running too much.’ I’m like, no man, it’s a privilege for me because I used to do it for me living. Now I’m doing it for my job. For me it’s nothing.

I think that there’s no limit to anything right now because we used to be in the worst position.

I’d do anything just to represent my country and represent every people that felt what I felt because it’s not good

I understand Hal Chernoff is more than your co-trainer and manager. What does he mean to you?

I live with the guy. What can I say? He’s like another father to me, and his wife Nancy. They’re like parents. The thing about it is, I’ve never met anyone so honest and hardheaded. Hal and I are a lot alike. He’s truly a good man. I try to be just like him as much as he tries to be like me.

We’ve been through so much, just him and I. Sometimes it was just me and him against the world and we overcame. There’s nothing he hasn’t told me that hasn’t happened. I remember when I was young he told me “You’re gonna be a champion,’ but he didn’t just mean a champion in the ring. He meant a champion in everything.

There was one time he told me that he didn’t care about boxing. If we don’t do this we’ll do something else. And I’m like, ‘we?’ But I thought it was just I and he was like, ‘nah it’s not just boxing, we’re in it together.’

I was getting good grades in school and then he was like no you can do better. I was getting 3.0s and stuff like that and for me that was great, and he was like, ‘no you can do better.’ And then at the end of the year I got a 4.0. He really pushed me, not just in my boxing career.

He told me he wanted to make me into a man and teach me stuff – not just about boxing

He’ll say if you really want to be a better person and an honest person you have to clean your room. An organized person, not just in boxing, is an organized person in life.

What would you attribute your success in the pro ranks to?

I never had natural talent. I never had that luck. Everything that I have is from hard, hard training, hard, hard work, and I’m still learning.

The thing is I’ve always wondered how, it’s not fair. You see a guy that works hard like me and then you see another guy that doesn’t do anything at all and he still can perform as good or even better than me. But then see that it all evens out because God gives you gifts and I think he gave me the ability to work hard and not mind.