Berto will put up a better fight than Pacquiao against Mayweather, says Ishe Smith

By Boxing News - 08/13/2015 - Comments

floyd6666By Chris Williams: The boxing world has their mind made up pretty much about Manny Pacquiao not putting up much of an effort in his one-sided 12 round decision loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. last May in the so-called “Fight of the Century” in Las Vegas, Nevada. While some boxing fans see it as a situation where Mayweather was simply too good for the aging Filipino star, other fans saw it as a case of Pacquiao just being too darned scared to fight hard.

I see it more as a combination of the two. After adding Pacquiao’s scalp to his resume, Mayweather has moved on to a fight against Andre Berto on September 12th. It’s assumed that Mayweather will make easy work of the 31-year-old Berto.

Former IBF junior middleweight champion Ishe Smith believes that Mayweather will win the fight, but he thinks Berto will put in a strong effort to try and win the fight. In fact, Smith believes that Berto will put more effort into the fight than Pacquiao did last May.

Unlike Pacquiao, who had a shoulder injury excuse he used after his loss to Mayweather, Smith doesn’t foresee Berto having an excuse after he loses. Berto will take his loss like a man and not start grumbling afterwards about having an injury that held him back.

“Berto won’t have excuses. He will come to fight and he’s never been in a dull fight,” Ishe Smith said to Fighthype. “He’s [Berto] got a pretty good name in the sport. Everybody knows who he is. I think he’s going to fight hard. I think he’s going to put up a better effort than Manny, but I don’t think it’s going to be enough.

Floyd is the best. What he does will probably be a KO late and dominate him late. But he [Berto] will put up a fight,” Smith said.

I do believe Smith speaks the truth here. I think Berto will put up a much better fight than Pacquiao. That’s not because he has more talent than Pacquiao. I think Berto has more heart, more courage and more of a willingness to fight through fear and pain than Pacquiao. That’s the difference in this fight. Berto will feel the fear and pain and keep coming forward looking to try and get lucky.

Pacquiao felt that pain and the fear and fought like someone who was trying not to get knocked out. I think the memory of Pacquiao’s knockout at the hand of Juan Manuel Marquez still haunts him even now three years later.

Pacquiao fought Mayweather like someone who can’t forget that terrible ordeal and who doesn’t want to take chances of that happening again. You got to hand it to Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum in doing a good job of match-making since that loss. Up until the time Pacquiao fought Mayweather, Arum had done a good job of putting Pacquiao in with vulnerable fighters that he was capable of beating. But once Pacquiao was in with Mayweather, his vulnerabilities were exposed and it showed clearly that Pacquiao hasn’t gotten over his knockout loss to Marquez.



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