By Dan Ambrose: Former three division world champion Robert Guerrero (30-1-1, 18 KO’s) will have an attempt to realize part of his huge ambitions by facing former IBF/WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (28-1, 22 KO’s) this Saturday night on HBO at the Citizens Business Bank Arena, in Ontario, California.

For Guerrero, this is just one piece in the large puzzle but it’s a fairly significant one because it’s the first real test for Guerrero at 147. Guerrero did beat previously undefeated WBC #1 Selcuk Aydin by a 12 round unanimous decision in his last fight in July. However, Aydin was totally unproven and had struggled badly to defeat Said Ouali in 2009.

That fight kind of told you where Aydin was at in terms of talent, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that Guerrero was able to beat Aydin. Guerrero beat Aydin but didn’t perform at the high level that boxing fans had been used to seeing Guerrero perform at when he was fighting at featherweight, super featherweight and lightweight.

Guerrero’s power, speed and stamina were significantly down and while he still won the fight against Aydin, there wasn’t anything in that performance that made you feel that Guerrero could beat the true quality fighters at 147. Berto is definitely among the very best in the division, and for Guerrero to beat him would be a really big deal.

But Guerrero is going to have to look a lot better this Saturday night than he did in the Aydin fight, as well as in his fight before that against Michael Katsidis, because the Guerrero won those fights will get beaten badly by Berto. There’s a huge step up that Guerrero needs to make for him be successful against a fast guy like Berto and I have my doubts he can do that.

Guerrero is getting Berto at the right time in his career because Berto hasn’t fought since last year in September due to a bad left bicep injury he suffered as well as his rematch with Victor Ortiz being cancelled after Berto tested positive for a banned substance. Berto would later be cleared of that, but he still ended up missing out on the fight and could end up being rusty on Saturday.

If Berto is the old Berto from before his injury and long layoff then he’ll likely win no problems against the slower and weaker Guerrero. But long layoff could cause problems with Berto’s stamina if the fight makes it into the second half of the bout, and Guerrero could then possible snatch a close 12 round decision.