Berto: I have the speed to keep up with Mayweather

By Boxing News - 09/11/2015 - Comments

Image: Berto: I have the speed to keep up with MayweatherBy Jim Dower: Andre Berto (30-3, 23 KOs) has the opportunity of a lifetime in front of him this Saturday night in his title challenge against WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) in their clash in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Berto, 31, is a big underdog in this fight in dealing with the No.1 fighter in boxing, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Berto feels like he’s been upsetting the odds his entire 11-year career and he plans on doing the same thing tomorrow night when he’s in the ring with the 38-year-old Mayweather at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Berto thinks his hand speed will be the match of Mayweather’s own fast hand speed. Berto notes that Mayweather had problems in facing a younger Zab Judan nine years ago in their fight in 2006.

Mayweather won the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision by a fairly wide set of scores of 119-109, 116-112 and 117-111. However, the fight was competitive in the first six rounds before Mayweather solved the Judah riddle and started dominating him.

“I have the speed to keep up with him. I have more power. The thing with Floyd is, most guys he fights aren’t as athletic as he is. I am. I’m as athletic as he is,” Berto said via ESPN.com. “If you have a guy that’s in front of him that’s athletic like a Zab Judah that gave him problems it’s going to be a different type of fight. He can’t say I’m straight up and down.”

I don’t think Berto is nearly as athletic as Mayweather. Berto is an athletic fighter, but he doesn’t have Mayweather’s talent, reach, and hand speed. That’s where the problem is for Berto. He’s going to be slower and he won’t have the reach to nail Mayweather with his shots. Mayweather figured Judah out and beat him in a convincing manner.

Berto isn’t as good as Judah was back in 2006. Judah was on another level back in 2006 compared to how Berto is in 2015. Berto is nothing like Judah. He’s just a slower guy who needs to get close to his opponents for him to and his shots. Mayweather isn’t going to let Berto get close enough to land his big power shots on Saturday night.

It’s going to be a fight that takes place from long range with Mayweather jabbing and landing pot shots like he always does. Mayweather is saying that he’s going to exchange shots with Berto, but I don’t believe that for a second.

“I’ve shown in the past that I have a lot more to me than just walking straight in,” Berto said. “I can have a crazy uppercut, I can move to the side. There are a lot of ways I can get it done.”

To have a chance of winning on Saturday night, Berto will need to walk Mayweather down in the same way that Marcos Maidana did in their first fight. Berto will need to take a lot of hard shots from Mayweather to put the kind of pressure on him that Maidana did. It’s unclear whether Berto’s eyes will be able to take that kind of punishment like they did in his loss to Robert Guerrero in 2012.



Comments are closed.