By Dan Ambrose: There are a lot of boxing fans who feel that Andre Berto doesn’t deserve to get the September 12th fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas, Nevada. Trainer Robert Garcia is one of the many people who don’t want to see Mayweather fight the 31-year-old Berto.
If given the choice, Garcia says Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) should be the one to get the fight. If not him, then he wants Brandon Rios (33-2, 24 KOs) to face Mayweather. But Garcia would want Rios’ promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank to step aside and let Mayweather’s promotional company to do the fight.
Garcia points out that Arum is stepping aside to let Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn put together the Rios vs. Kell Brook fight for September 12th at the O2 Arena in London, England. Garcia figures that if Arum is willing to let Hearn run the show for the Brook-Rios fight, then Arum should step aside and let Mayweather Promotions run the show for a fight between Rios and Mayweather.
“I would rather see him fight Amir Khan. I don’t think Berto has earned it, but Mayweather can fight anybody,” Garcia said to Fighthype. “[Arum should] step aside and let Brandon fight Mayweather. I think that fight would sell more than Mayweather against Andre Berto.”
Garcia is right about Rios vs. Mayweather selling more tickets than Mayweather-Berto. There’s no comparison. A lot more fans would want to see Rios vs. Mayweather. The only problem is Rios is likely going to be fighting Brook on September 12th unless their negotiations fizzle. They’re currently haggling over the rematch clause that Brook wants in the contract.
While Arum is confident that fight will eventually get signed, Hearn is already talking about a backup plan of having Brook fight in October against someone else if the negotiations don’t work out with Rios. The fact that Hearn is talking about a backup plan right now suggests that the negotiations might go down the drain if Rios and Top Rank agree to whatever they want.
Khan might end up getting the fight with Mayweather. There’s no way of knowing whether Mayweather is even serious about mentioning Berto and Karim Mayfield as his candidates for his September 12th fight. Those guys both trainer under the same trainer as Khan with Virgil Hunter, and it could be that Mayweather is just trying to mess with Khan’s head by making him think that he could choose Berto or Mayfield for his next fight instead of him. It’s hard to read what Mayweather will do at this point. But then again, he could be so fed up with Khan’s constant talking about him that he may just ignore him on purpose and pick someone else.
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