Mayweather: It’s not going to be easy beating Berto

By Boxing News - 08/31/2015 - Comments

Image: Mayweather: It’s not going to be easy beating BertoBy Chris Williams: WBA/WBC Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) doesn’t expect his 49th victim to be an easy one in less than two weeks from now when he faces one of the big names from the past Andre Berto (30-3, 23 KOs) on Showtime pay-per-view on September 12th from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mayweather knows the 31-year-old Berto will be fighting tooth and nail to try and get that victory, because if he can become the first fighter to defeat Mayweather, he’ll go down in the history books as the guy that stopped his streak. Mayweather is like a baseball pitcher who is in the 9th inning of game with a no-hitter going.

Indeed, Mayweather is en route to pitching a perfect game, and the only one who can prevent him from accomplishing this feat is Berto if he can somehow beat him. I don’t know if it’s possible for Berto to do that, because he’s never been a great boxer and he seems to be on the downside of his career. But Berto still does have a lot of punching power and good hand speed. The only thing we don’t know is if his style will work on a talented fighter like Mayweather or not.

Mayweather doesn’t believe that he should be blamed for his last fight against Manny Pacquiao being such a one-sided affair. Mayweather notes that it was the boxing fans and the media who were the ones who built up Pacquiao. Mayweather merely exposed Pacquiao to the world by showing that he’s not as good as some people thought he was.

“I started off with the Pacquiao fight,”Mayweather said via DirectTV. “I didn’t care what I had to do. He didn’t live up to expectations. I went out there and I was smart. Everyone put so much hype behind Manny Pacquiao. It wasn’t my fault. My job was to go out there and be the master class player I’ve been from day one.”

Mayweather said before the fight that was going to go out there and out-box Pacquiao, and that’s exactly what he did. But when he did it, I guess the boxing world weren’t expecting it to be so one-sided, because they got upset when the fight wasn’t a primitive crude brawl like they were hoping it would be.

If the fans wanted a brawl, then they should have convinced Pacquiao to fight Marcos Maidana instead of Mayweather. But even Maidana would have likely beaten Pacquiao in that fight, but even worse because I think he would have knocked Pacquiao out with his huge power shots.

Pacquiao looked timid of getting hit by Mayweather after he tasted his punching power in the first two rounds. Maidana would have either knocked Pacquiao out in the first two rounds or had him so afraid of getting hit that he wouldn’t even bother attacking much.

In speaking about Berto, Mayweather said “He’s a boxer/puncher, a good knockout ratio. He can give it and take it and is never in a dull fight. It’s not going to be an easy. A young guy, tough, always in an exciting fight. He’s not going to lay down.”

Berto isn’t that young of a fighter. Age-wise, he’s a young guy at 31, but he’s an old 31, because he’s had so many injuries in recent years, and his body has been slowly falling apart on him. That’s why I’m very surprised that Berto has been able to last thing long in training camp without blowing out one of his biceps or shoulders during the rigorous training.

“Of course, I’m not the same Floyd Mayweather I once was when I was 21-22,” Mayweather said. But with age comes wisdom. The sport of boxing has been good to me. It’ been great. 49 is very important, but every fight is important. I would never overlook any opponent. Boxing is my job. It’s something I take very serious. It’s all about controlling and dictating the pace of the fight. The sport of boxing has been real, real good to me. It took me to places where I never thought I would go before. I dreamed about going around the world, and I knew if I stuck to the sport of boxing and stuck to my skills, anything is capable of happening.”

Mayweather has got enough left in the tank to stay on top of the sport for another 3-5 years without getting beaten. The welterweight class is a limited one right now, and Pacquiao is on his last legs at this point in his career.



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