Will either Andre Berto or Victor Ortiz regain world titles?

By James P Sexton - 01/04/2015 - Comments

ortiz32By James P Sexton: The 2011 Ring Magazine Fight of the Year took place in April and was a WBC World Welterweight Title bout between undefeated champion Andre Berto and Victor Ortiz. The fight got off to a great start with Berto going down in the opening round, and then Ortiz down in the second.

The fast pace was maintained throughout the fight and the sixth round was one to remember with both warriors touching the canvas. Despite a late point deduction for Ortiz, he walked away with the unanimous 12 round decision as well as Berto’s title.

Despite the result it was generally believed that both ben had established themselves as true warriors and it was expected that both would maintain their positions at the top of this stacked division for years to come. However Ortiz would lose the title in his very next fight and Berto had only one more win before back to back losses including a knockout courtesy of Jesus Soto Karass – a man who now has ten professional losses. The point of this article is to take a look at the careers of these two former champions and realise how similar their career paths have been and ask whether either man can establish themselves as a legitimate player again.

At the time of writing, Berto is 31 and Ortiz is 27. Neither young but certainly not too old to make another title run. Both fighters have 3 losses in their last five bouts and both fighters have won their last bouts. To my knowledge, neither fighter has a scheduled bout arranged for 2015, but it would be expected that they would be arranged before long and with the wealth of talent at 147 it could really be anyone who is matched up with them. At this stage in their careers it would be interesting to see whether they will be placed in ‘tune-up’ style matchups or put back into deep waters with a risky fight.

Another interesting point is that whilst there were calls for a rematch after their action packed first encounter, one never materialised and with both men looking to climb back up the ranks it wouldn’t be impossible to seem them collide again at some point in the next two years. Could you imagine two men who have experienced such sharp falls from grace meet again to win the honour of fight of the year again in 2016, possibly for a title?

For the time being neither man is ranked highly enough to be of any major impact on the divisions kingpins, but having both put their names back in the winning column, they shouldn’t be forgotten as they may have some bang left before they choose to hang them up.



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