Mayweather rejects Golovkin in favor of Andre Berto?

By Boxing News - 06/18/2015 - Comments

berto111By Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweather Jr. said yesterday that he felt he would have no problems beating WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin if the two of them were to fight, but that Mayweather is nearing the end of his career. But what’s confusing is that Mayweather in the next breath said that he’s considering a fight against Andre Berto (30-3, 23 KOs) for his fight in September.

This leaves one to wonder whether Mayweather feels that Berto, who has lost 2 out of his last 4 fights, is a better fighter than Golovkin? If Berto is better, then why has he been struggling for so long with his career?

Berto was looking poor even before he started getting beaten left and right by average fighters like Victor Ortiz, Robert Guerrero and Jesus Soto Karass.

“I need an Andre Berto or Karim Mayfield,” Mayweather said about his next fight in September. Mayfield hast lost 2 out of his last 3 fights. Is he better than Golovkin too?

I think Mayweather would stand to gain a lot more from a fight against the unbeaten Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) than he would in a fight against Berto or Mayfield. If Mayweather does believe that Berto and Mayfield are better than Golovkin, then he’ll need to follow their careers closely from now on to see where they end up. I don’t think either of them is going anywhere.

Berto will obviously be getting a world title shot in the near future against one of the welterweight champions, but I don’t expect him to do well. Berto is too fragile, easy to hit, and simply not very good. Berto never was that good of a fighter to begin with. He captured titles, but he did it against paper champions and not against the really good fighters.

“Even at my weight, he [Golovkin] can’t beat me,” Mayweather said. “He can’t beat me. I thought he was straight up and down. No special effects. He can punch, but I seen him in his last fight [against Willie Monroe]. I don’t even know who that guy was. If I worked with the guy, the guy would have beaten him.”

Mayweather would clearly have no problems hitting Golovkin, but the question is would Mayweather’s punches slow Golovkin down enough to keep him off of him for three minutes of every round? I think not. Manny Pacquiao backed off after he was hit by Mayweather’s right hands early in their fight last May, but Pacquiao hasn’t been the same fighter ever since he was knocked out in 6 rounds by Juan Manuel Marquez.

Pacquiao doesn’t have the fearlessness that he once had. If Golovkin were to walk through Mayweather’s shots, he would be bouncing right hands and left hooks off of Mayweather’s chin. The question then would be whether Mayweather could handle Golovkin’s power for 12 rounds?

When you have a knockout percentage like Golovkin has, it means something. I don’t know that Mayweather would be any different from the other 30 guys that Golovkin knocked out in the past. Unless Mayweather drained Golovkin down to 150, I think he would be in for a very difficult night that would completely different from what he would experience if he were to fight Berto or Mayfield.



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