Cleveland cemetery worker attempts to break Guinness World Record

CLEVELAND (KABC) -- A cemetery worker in Cleveland is trying to set a Guinness World Record for digging a grave by hand.

"I'm digging this grave by hand with a shovel in two hours and 13 minutes," said Jose Luis Rivera.

He said that he loves a good challenge.

Rivera works at the Riverside Cemetery in Cleveland. Before Rivera started working at the cemetery, he was a boxer. He was once the light heavyweight champion of the world.

"Being a professional boxer, being an amateur professional boxer man, I love challenges," Rivera said.

Rivera went through 48,000 world records and found that the grave digging challenge has never been attempted.

Grave digging usually takes a group of men to complete in six hours, but Rivera will attempt to do it alone in a little over two hours.

Rivera isn't just doing it to satisfy his love for challenges. He is raising money for Water for Life, a non-profit organization that not only digs wells in remote regions to provide clean drinking water to the impoverished, but also teaches communities how to create and maintain their own local water.

As Rivera furiously trains for the upcoming world record challenge, he continues to motivate himself by thinking about the water that underdeveloped regions need.

"I'm going to do it. I'm just going to keep on thinking about water. People getting water," Rivera said.

Rivera is set to go for his record-breaking attempt on Thursday.