Berto: I got caught up trying to KO Mayweather

By Boxing News - 09/14/2015 - Comments

1-IMG_1585By Allan Fox: Andre Berto (30-4, 23 KOs) was badly schooled last Saturday night by Floyd Mayweather Jr. (49-0, 26 KOs) in their mismatch at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Berto thinks that he made the mistake of trying to score a knockout over Mayweather all night long, and this was one of the reasons why he rarely was able to connect with any of his punches in the fight.

Berto connected on only 17 percent of his shots in the fight, which is an incredibly low number, given that Mayweather was standing in the pocket right in front of him much of the fight. But Berto fought like he always does by him looking to take Mayweather out with every shot that he threw.

That’s how Berto always fights, and it’s one of the reasons why he runs out of gas, and probably one of the biggest reasons why he suffers arm and shoulder injuries.

“He’s just smart. Really smart,” Berto said via the latimes.com. “I got caught up, like everybody else, in trying to knock him out. Even when I was on the inside, he’d tie me up with his little tactics. You want to catch his [rear] and get him out of there. He’s too sharp.”

Berto was doing much of the tying up on the inside. That’s the real sad part about it. Berto couldn’t catch up to Mayweather at all when he was using movement. Berto was horrible at cutting off the ring on Mayweather. It was only when Mayweather would stop moving to seemingly give Berto a break that he was able to get within punching distance. But even then, Berto would frequently grab Mayweather in a clinch rather than throw punches.

Yes, Mayweather did a lot of holding too, but a lot of the holding was done by Berto. He was defeating himself, but I think he did the holding out of necessity. Berto just does not have good stamina. He runs out of gas too quickly in fights, and I suspect that’s why he was holding Mayweather all night long rather than trying to throw a lot of punches.

“I haven’t been in there with Rocky Marciano, but to have that speed and timing, it’s unheard of,” Berto said.

Mayweather’s speed was only a problem for Berto when he was on the outside. When Berto came in close, Mayweather showed that he can’t throw his speedy punches on the inside. In that respect, he’s a lot like Adonis Stevenson, a fighter who can throw with blazing speed and power from the outside. But when you take the fight to Stevenson on the inside, he’s not a huge puncher and his speed disappears. He needs his opponents to be on the outside for him to be able to do damage. The problem that Berto had is he lacked the inside game to take advantage of Mayweather when he got in close, and like I said, he did a lot of holding instead of fighting.

Berto needs to make a lot of changes to his game if he wants to be one of the major players in the welterweight division. The way Berto fought last Saturday night, I don’t think he deserves to be a top 15 contender, and certainly he doesn’t rate the WBA interim welterweight title that the World Boxing Association gave him after he beat Josesito Lopez.



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