Mayweather: There will be knockdowns and blood in Berto fight

By Boxing News - 08/07/2015 - Comments

Floyd Mayweather(Esther Lin/Showtime) By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. expects to go out with a huge bang in his September 12th fight against former IBF/WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (30-3, 23 KOs) on Showtime pay-per-view. Mayweather says the fight will be filled with blood and knockdowns. If so, this is going to be one of Mayweather’s more interesting bouts because it’s been a while since one of his fights involved a knockdown.

There was blood in his first fight against Marcos Maidana, but it was Mayweather’s own blood after he suffered a cut from a head clash. The last time someone was knocked down in one of Mayweather’s fights was in 2011, when Victor Ortiz was dropped from a left-right combination while he had his hands down by his sides after he hugged Mayweather to say he was sorry from head-butting him moments before.

“When he comes in and the way I am going to come in, there is going to be knockdowns and blood. As of now I am focused on September 12, my last time,” Mayweather said to Fightnews.com. “September 13 I will sit at home watch football and be with my kids every day. I am going out with a bang after this.”

With boxing fans having to pay $65-$75 to see this fight on Showtime pay-per-view, Mayweather had better hope that there’s blood and knockdowns in this fight because the fans aren’t happy one bit that they’re being asked to pay for what is perceived to be a dreadful mismatch. Berto isn’t seen as a relevant fighter nowadays in the welterweight division.

The World Boxing Association has Berto as their WBA interim 147lb champion, but a lot of fans see that as a bogus trinket title based off nothing wins for Berto. For him to get the interim job, Berto only had to beat Josesito Lopez, a fighter who isn’t even ranked in the top 15 any longer. If the fight had taken place four years ago before Lopez started losing on a regular basis, it would be understandable for Berto to be given the WBA interim title from a win over Lopez. But beating the guy now means absolutely zero in the minds of a lot of fans.

“He [Berto] goes down and gets back up,” Mayweather said. “Berto is a tough competitor; he is going to fight his ass off.”

For Mayweather’s fight with Berto to be an action-packed affair filled with blood and knockdowns, it’s going to require for Mayweather to be a lot more aggressive than what we’ve seen from him before in recent years, because he’s been a safety first fighter for the past eight years. The last time where Mayweather was really aggressive was in his fight against Ricky Hatton in 2007.

To be sure, Berto is a tough competitor, but he’s not done anything for so many years in terms of beating anyone of substance. You can say that Berto’s last meaningful victory was his win over Luis Collazo in January 2009. That was a close controversial 12 round decision that the then undefeated Berto got in that fight. But that was really the last important win for Berto, because he started showing signs of fading soon after that fight.

A lot of fans wonder why Mayweather is fighting Berto rather than Amir Khan, who is ranked No.1 by the WBC, and who has been tailing Mayweather for years trying to get a fight against him with no luck. Mayweather recently said that he’s not fighting Khan because he hasn’t done anything about avenging his loss to Danny Garcia, who beat him by a 4th round knockout three years ago in 2012. However, fans say that argument doesn’t hold any water because Berto never avenged his losses to Victor Ortiz, Robert Guerrero and Jesus Soto Karass. Those were guys that Berto likely could have fought a second time if he’d pushed for a rematch, which he never did. Fans figure that if Mayweather was willing to fight Berto despite him not avenging his three defeats, then he should have been willing to fight Khan.

“I will say this. How many championships has Khan won? Berto has won two,” Mayweather said.
Even if Mayweather does have an argument for why he’s not willing to fight Khan, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t have fought the likes of Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia, or Shawn Porter. Fans would have really loved to see Mayweather fight one of those guys. Between them, they only have one defeat so it’s not as if they have a lot of defeats that they need to avenge in order to get a fight against Mayweather.



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