Berto is ready to match his hand speed against Mayweather’s

By Boxing News - 08/30/2015 - Comments

Image: Berto is ready to match his hand speed against Mayweather’sBy Allan Fox: Former IBF/WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (30-3, 23 KOs) feels that he’s got the hand speed to match Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) on September 12th, and he’s looking forward to having a speed game with him. Berto feels that his hand speed is either equal or better than Mayweather’s.

But the difference he sees is his superior punching power that he has in both hands, and he thinks that he’s going to be able to cause Mayweather a great deal of problems when he starts landing his big shots against him.

At this time, Berto is considered to be a huge underdog by the odds-makers. He thinks the reason for this is because of his injury problems he had during the last four years of his record that has resulted in him losing 3 of his last 6 fights.

“Number 48 don’t mean nothing to me at all,” Berto said to the Dish Network. “It just means nothing. Right now I’m just focused. I don’t care about what kind of history or what kind of record he’s trying to make. I’m in this to make history myself. I think I have that kind of fighting style that gives guys problems, especially a guy like that. I have the speed to either match his or better. I’ve been fighting fast guys all my life. I know he’s quick, but I think we’re going to have a little speed game and I’m looking forward to seeing it. I’ll be able to afford to see it. I see it playing out as victory; at the end of the day victory. That’s it.”

Berto does have very fast hands still. That hasn’t changed too much. He’s definitely slower than he was 10 years ago, but he’s still very fast, and arguably as fast as what we saw from Mayweather’s last opponent Manny Pacquiao. The Filipino fighter might have been faster if not for his shoulder injury, but Berto definitely has hand speed that matches what we saw from Pacquiao.

Where Berto is more dangerous is he’s got a great uppercut that he likes to throw in close, and Mayweather is vulnerable to that punch because he lets his opponents walk up on him to take the fight to the inside. That could be a mistake for Mayweather because Berto will be looking to take his head off with every shot that he throws.

Berto’s opponents in the last four years have shown good chins to take some of his big punches. It’ll be interesting to see if Mayweather can take those kinds of big shots for a full 12 round fight without getting knocked out in this fight.

“You’re in there fighting the best in the game, but I’ve already prepared myself for the storm,” Berto said. “I went through a lot of doubts whether I’d be able to come back, but I proved it in my last two fights and I’m ready to go.”

Berto had bicep and shoulder problems that sidelined him for periods in the last four years, and he was fortunate to come back from those injuries. Those injures flared up both during fights and during training for fights. Luckily for Berto, he’s been injury free during this training camp, as far as we know. Boxing fans and the media will never know for sure if a fighter is going into an important fight injury free, because in a lot of cases the fighter will go ahead and still take an important bout even though they’re hurt. It’s too risky to try and get the fight postponed because a fighter might wind up getting replaced unless they’re in a strong position in terms of their career. Berto obviously isn’t in that kind of position for him to try and postpone a fight. But we have to hope that Berto isn’t coming into the fight with Mayweather with a preexisting problem like Manny Pacquiao did in his last fight.

If Berto wants to win this fight then he’s going to need to take the fight to Mayweather and look to score a knockout fast because he’s not going to do well trying to box with Mayweather. It doesn’t matter if Berto’s hand speed is as good as Mayweather’s or not. He’s going to struggle badly if he can’t get to Mayweather fast on September 12th.



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