By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (28-1, 21 KO’s) captured the IBF welterweight title on Saturday night in beating champion Jan Zaveck (31-2, 18 Ko’s) by a 5th round TKO at the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi.

The ended due to a cut Zaveck sustained in the 5th round after being rammed by Berto’s head. Berto did a lot of clinching and looked just as terrible in this fight as he had in his recent loss to Victor Ortiz. It looked as if Berto was well on his way to losing again at the time of the cut.

However, he had a slight lead at the time of the stoppage but looked to be struggling. It’s hard to see Berto beating Ortiz again or even Zaveck without a cut being involved. Overall, Berto looked terrible with the clinching and poor defense.

Berto looked decent enough in the first three rounds, but he was clearly fading by the 4th and 5th rounds, and taking pretty much one-way punishment. The HBO crew were all over Berto, pouring nonstop praise upon his head. They compared him to Meldrick Taylor at one point, and it was kind of sickening given how poorly Berto was fighting in the 4th and 5th round. I was never much of a Taylor fan, but he at least could fight well past the 3rd round. He didn’t run out of gas and stop punching the way Berto did after the 3rd.

It seems like there’s a disconnect between HBO’s analysts in terms of what they see in Berto and what the average boxing fan see from him. Berto doesn’t look like anything special to the average fan, who doesn’t like to see guys clinching, holding and running out of gas by the midpoint in the fight. They also haven’t liked Berto’s poor choice of opposition during his three years as the WBC welterweight champion. It’s scary now that Berto has picked up the IBF title, because boxing fans may be forced to see more easy match making for Berto against soft opposition for the next three or four years with all of the fights, of course, being faithfully televised on HBO.