By Allan Fox: If Floyd Mayweather Jr. does go ahead and fight former IBF/WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto on September 12th, HBO analyst Max Kellerman is all for the idea of that fight taking place, as long as it’s on CBS and not pay-per-view.
Kellerman thinks that Berto is a well-known fighter in terms of the casual boxing fans, and it makes a lot of sense for Mayweather to fight him rather than guys like Kell Brook, Keith Thurman or Amir Khan, who either haven’t looked good recently or aren’t well-known to the American public.
Kellerman doesn’t think it’s a good idea for Mayweather to fight Berto if the fight will cost boxing fans by having it staged on Showtime pay-per-view. Kellerman thinks that’s a bad idea because boxing fans are already unhappy after paying big money to see the disappointing fight between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao last May, and many of those fans felt like they were ripped off. They didn’t like the way the fight lacked action, and they also weren’t happy to hear about Pacquiao having a preexisting shoulder problem that kept him being 100 percent for the fight.
“I think Andre Berto is an underrated opponent, particularly if it was going to be on free TV,” Kellerman said via Fighthype. “If it’s on broadcast TV, Berto makes a lot of sense. He’s a bigger name in this country than a guy like Kell Brook. It’s not like Amir Khan has looked recently like he did several years ago; the same thing with Thurman. He just struggled in a couple of fights. Berto has had a long and good career on American television.”
The problem with what Kellerman is saying is that Mayweather is reportedly planning on fighting Berto on Showtime pay-per-view on September 12th, not on CBS. This means that boxing fans are going to have to pay their hard-earned money to see a fight that could turn out to be a total mismatch with Mayweather dominating Berto. Unless Mayweather takes it easy on Berto by fighting his fight and standing directly in front of him to give him a chance, this fight will likely be a one-sided mismatch.
Things could be even worse if Mayweather charges a ton for the fight by asking fans to pay $99 to see the fight like in his last bout against Pacquiao. Supposedly, they hiked the price for the fight because it was the “Fight of the Century” and it was a big enough fight for them to get away with raising the prices.
Mayweather’s next fight is supposed to be at his old price of $65. But if the price doesn’t drop from the $99 we saw in the Pacquiao fight, boxing fans are going to be very angry about it and it’s not likely that a lot of fans will be willing to pay big money to see Mayweather beat up on Berto all night long. After all, Berto has won 2 out of his last 4 fights. That’s not good, especially if you’re being asked to pay big money to see Mayweather fight a guy with a record like that.
“He [Berto] has fast hands and he has a good fighting heart,” Kellerman said. “He makes TV friendly fights. As a CBS opponent, he makes some sense. As a pay-per-view opponent, it’ll be interesting to see how many buys they’ll do, because they just did 4.4 million buys for a fight that was considered a dud against Pacquiao. And now he’s coming back against a guy that nobody thinks has a chance to beat him. But I love the idea for a broadcast fight. Berto makes all the sense for a broadcast fight. It’s a good will gesture. He [Mayweather] just fought Cotto, Canelo and Pacquiao.”
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