Berto-Mosley: More intriguing fight than people think

By Peter Wells: The first top draw fight of 2010 is just over a month away now, set for 30th January at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. The fights main event will feature the 3rd best boxer in the world Shane Mosley fighting World Boxing Council welterweight champion Andre Berto in a WBC/WBA unification fight.

Shane Mosley will have been inactive exactly a year since stopping the Welterweight hardman, Antonio Margarito, whom was later found out to be attempting to wear illegal hand wraps. Mosley took the WBA champion to school just after Margarito had defeated Miguel Cotto and maybe ruined what was to be a glorious career. Antonio never won a round, beat down, floored in the 8th and stopped the next; it was Shane’s turn around fight. It was Shane’s 39th stop from 46 victories. Suddenly the whole division avoided him, including Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather. Mosley made his case to Floyd Mayweather’s face after Floyd beat Juan Manuel Marquez in his return fight.

Despite what people say, Andre Berto is no man to take easy, since winning the WBC title in June 2008 by stopping Miguel Angel Rodriguez, he has gone on to make 3 successful defences of his belt. Firstly he beat Steve Forbes on points on the Mosley-Mayorga undercard in a one sided contest. Then his close victory over Luis Collazo, where he was exposed in many ways; but did just enough to take his title home with him. Then after all the criticism he outclassed Juan Urango in a completely dominant person, almost floorless.

Berto has fought some decent names but hasn’t fought anyone in Mosley’s league yet, and will need to be on his best when the fight comes around. Every great fighting has to start with a fight like this, a fight where he is going against a much better fighter than himself, and if he is truly great he will succeed, and this is how this fight is. If Berto is going to be a future great, he will exceed expectations here and come out on top, but if he isn’t yet ready, or never will be ready, we shall see Mosley come out with all the belts.

I can’t say whether Berto will be great or not, but lets just say that both fighters will give there best performances of there careers so far. Mosley will be strong early on, with Berto starting slowly as he did versus Collazo. Mosley gets through on a few occasions to take the first 3 rounds. Berto starts to move more try to get under the jabs of Mosley, but gets caught for most of the next two rounds. As we enter the second half of the fight Mosley is up 60-54, and is growing in confidence and going up in the gears. Berto will look out of his depth but will start to find his rhythm and will catch Mosley with some very hard shots. Mosley will keep his head till the very end, controlling the majority of the fight, but will concede a few rounds near the end.

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