By Dan Ambrose: Former IBF/WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto’s career seems to be really tanking now with his latest defeat in getting stopped last night in the 12th round by Jesus Soto Karass in San Antonio, Texas.
Berto (28-3, 22 KO’s) still only has 3 defeats on his resume so it’s not completely over for him as a contender, but he’s going to need to make more dramatic changes in his game if he wants to have any chance of succeeding. His stamina is a problem for him.
Berto fought well at times in the first 8 rounds, but he looked to be tiring in the last part of the fight.
At 29, Berto’s stamina issues probably aren’t going to get any better, but he didn’t help himself by putting on all that useless muscle for this fight. He needs to trim that muscle off and get leaner.
Berto doesn’t seem to have ever learned how to fight in bouts that went into the later rounds. You’ve got to blame his promoters for that problem. If you look at Berto’s resume, he was taking a lot of easy fights from 2004 to 2010. Berto was able to destroy the weak opponents fed to him in quick knockouts that taught him nothing as far as dealing with adversity and helping his stamina.
Berto was busy defeating the likes of Juan Urango, Steve Forbes, Carlos Quintana, Cosme Rivera, Freddy Hernandez, Michel Trabant, Luis Collazo and Martinus Clay. These are the type of fighters that Berto was facing up until he fought Victor Ortiz in 2011. It’s really not surprising that he was beaten by Ortiz and now Soto Karass and Robert Guerrero because the foundation wasn’t set early in his career.
I think the only thing that Berto can do is move down in weight to 140. I said it before and I’ll say it again, this is really the only option Berto has. If he stays at 147, he’s going to be an opponent for the younger welterweights to beat, and he doesn’t have the size to fight at 154.
At 140, Berto might be able to do something with his career if he can work on his defense, learn how to fight taller fighters and fix his stamina to where he fight longer bouts without tiring. Berto needs to learn how to pace himself because that’s one thing that could help him.
If Berto wants to cash out with his career then he should lean on Al Haymon and Golden Boy Promotions to put him in with WBA welterweight champion Adrien Broner for a final payday fight, but that’s going to be tough for that to happen right now with Berto having lost back to back fights to Guerrero and Soto Karass. I don’t think Showtime would like the idea of televising Broner vs. Berto right now.
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