Berto Wins, But Is His Future Limited?
January 19th, 2009
By Chris Williams: On Saturday night, WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto fought a war against challenger Luis Collazo, grinding out a 12-unanimous decision in a fight that is already be considered as a candidate for a fight of the year. For Berto, it was his 2nd title defense of his WBC belt and easily the toughest opponent of his five year career.
As the fight progressed, Berto’s power and speed took over the fight as he took control of the bout and punished Collazo with hard blows. Berto showed his inexperience by allowing Collazo to fight him in close range, which seemed to favor Collazo more so than Berto. However, Berto made adjustments after the 5th round and stayed on the outside and used his speed to beat back Collazo’s attacks.
Berto would later go back to fighting Collazo on the inside in the 9th and 10th, giving up the rounds with his bad decision making. But with the fight on the line, Berto came back well in the 11th and 12th, fighting hard and landing well with power shots until the final bell. It was a courageous effort by the young champion and showed what he’s made of.
Still undefeated, Berto remains the only champion without a defeat on his record. However, in spite of getting the win, Berto may not last long as a champion. Berto, as exciting as he is, seems to take too much punishment in his fights against his toughest opponents of his career. Collazo may have been Berto’s best opponent to date, but there’s many other fighters out there that are just as good, if not better than Collazo and it makes one wonder whether Berto has what it takes to beat them.
For sure, his offense is better than most other welterweights except for, perhaps, Antonio Margarito, Paul Williams and Miguel Cotto, but his defense is clearly lacking. To put it another way, if Berto continues to take punishment like this in his fights, I don’t see him staying a champion for much longer.
He might be good enough to beat Collazo in a rematch, but if Berto wants to beat the better fighters in the division like Joshua Clottey, Cotto, Williams, Margarito or his top challengers, he’s going to need to improve quickly. At best, I think he’d give Cotto, Williams and Margarito problems for six rounds or so, but after that I can see them taking him apart and knocking him out.
Berto clearly needs a lot more work if he’s to avoid being a champion that doesn’t last. There’s been talk of him fighting unification bouts with the other welterweight champions. I think that’s a bad idea, because Berto doesn’t appear ready to fight the top welterweights yet. He would be better served to continue defending his title against fighters like Collazo, Jesus Soto Karass, Carlos Baldomir and Zab Judah. If Berto sticks to these kinds of fighters in the next year or two, I think it would give him time to improve enough to fight better opponents without taking a severe beating and losing his title.
Tags: 6 Responses to “Berto Wins, But Is His Future Limited?”
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well said calv as a brit my self i dont underestimate your american fighters so you shoudnt our british ones
Berto is coming along fine. Collazo is a tough fighter. He did give Hatton all he can handle (a lot of people thought Collazo won) and fought Mosley the distance after breaking his finger in the second round.
Berto is tough with a lot of heart. He wins. Isn’t that what it is all about. How come Hatton gets knocked out with a check hook and he is still considered great (I realize it was a Mayweather hook) but when Berto gets chin checked… all of the sudden he is a bum? He gets up and fights and he wins.
If Berto was a “defensive specialist” like Winky Wright then you guys would call him “boring”.
Enjoy the sport. Enjoy the science AND the excitement. Quit trying to find reasons why guy’s are “paper champions” and “overrated” and appreciate the fact that they fight there asses off and dedicated their lives so we have something to talk about.
Berto fought his ass off. So did Collazo. Let them enjoy the fact that they did .
Dude, 147 division weak…. come on!?!
who cares about berto ??? hes a paper champion and he lost the fight with collazo, collazo took him to school, yea the same collazo that got beat by mosley, hatton??? hes the more overrated figther and hes takind advantage of the weak weak division, mayweather ko easily lol. so come on hatton ?? hes figthing paulie magic man? juan lazcano? fattie castillo?? hes been protected so much but hes not a pound for pound bound so stop saying that.
Adam you lose all credibility by making comments like this. You can’t just keep coming out and saying that all the British fighters are rubbish just because they are British and that all the British fighters that win matches should actually have lost them, just because they are British. You have to have other reasons as well! I’m pretty sure you have never actually seen most of them fight, you just llok at the nationality and decide they are rubbish if they are Brits.
berto barly one the fight but he did pull it off, he will beet any of the other w.w. he didnt look sharp that time. Marg. would be the only one to beet him maybe if berto could find a way to box all 12 rounds he could pull it off the kid is tough and he’s only 25 he would kill any of the light w.w.’s i watch the fight with ricky hatton n coloz. ricky lost the fight berto is bad and fun to watch i have had my eye on him fer a bit now, ithink he will beet everone.
Considering that Berto actually beat Collazo and Hatton really lost to Collazo.I would think Berto would stand a chance of becoming one of the best.Since all the Brits on this site wanna think Hatton’s the best.It’s Berto’s defense that i have a problem with though.But there’s no doubt in my mind that Berto is becoming a much better boxer than Hatton.Berto is much quicker and has much more power.