Should HBO dump Andre Berto?

By Eric Thomas: In a recent column by Dan Rafael of ESPN, he mentioned that WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto had reportedly turned down $750,000 to fight a unification bout against Isaac Hlatshwayo, the IBF welterweight champion.

Rafael went on to say that HBO has been overpaying for the services of Berto and that it’s unlikely that anyone else would pay the money that HBO has been paying to show Berto’s fights. One question that I have for HBO is why are they paying to show Berto’s fights when he still has yet to catch the boxing public’s imagination and gain much of a fan base. Part of the problem with Berto is that he hasn’t fought anyone with a big enough name to win him any news.

And that includes Berto’s time as a contender. Berto didn’t exactly have to face the most dangerous welterweight in the world when he defeated Miguel Angel Rodriguez last year by a 7th round TKO to capture the vacant World Boxing Council welterweight title.

That was the perfect opponent for Berto to get an easy title from, because if it had been someone dangerous like Antonio Margarito, Kermit Cintron, Shane Mosley or Miguel Cotto, I’d have serious doubts whether Berto had won the fight and been able to pick up a title. HBO seems to have taken a gamble with Berto, looking at some of his fights before he became champion, in which Berto had looked exciting with his blazing fast hand speed, and then predicted that Berto would be a future star in the welterweight division.

As of yet, things haven’t worked out that way, because Berto has fought Steve Forbes, Luis Collazo and light welterweight Juan Urango, beating all of them but doing it in a less than crowd pleasing style. Starting with the fight against Forbes, Berto has become more of a safety first type fighter and less of the offensive minded fighter he was before becoming a champion. Berto now does a lot of clinching and holding on in his fights, adopting the punch and grab style to win his fights. It’s worked for Berto, but his fights have become as interesting as watching paint dry.

I can see why Berto wouldn’t want to fight Hlatshwayo for $750,000 when HBO is paying him in the neighborhood of $500,000 to fight arguably less dangerous opponents. The WBC welterweight division isn’t exactly stacked with talent and Berto could in theory remain a champion for a long time to come without ever really facing a dangerous opponent like a Cotto or Mosley.

If HBO is willing to give Berto good money to fight the less than thrilling fighters in the WBC, I guess you can’t blame Berto for sticking to the easier option. However, I don’t see how HBO should continue to show his fights if his bouts are dull to watch and his opponents even duller with names that only the hardcore boxing fans have ever heard of.

I think Berto is a good fighter, but I can see other fighters out there that I would prefer to see on HBO rather than him. Berto just hasn’t looked all that interesting in his past three fights and it kind of reminds me of watching some of Floyd Mayweather’s less than appealing performances in the past.

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