Video: Berto vs. Porter and Charlo vs. Hatley official weights

By Boxing News - 04/21/2017 - Comments

Image: Video: Berto vs. Porter and Charlo vs. Hatley official weights

By Jim Dower: In this Saturday’s television broadcast on Showtime Championship Boxing, Andre Berto, Shawn Porter, Jermell Charlo and Charles Hatley all weighed in successfully at Friday’s weigh-in for their matches at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Former two-time welterweight world champion Berto (31-4, 24 KOs) weighed in at 146 ½ pounds for his WBC welterweight title eliminator bout against former IBF champ Porter (26-2-1, 16 KOs). For his part, Porter weighed in at the welterweight limit at 147 lbs.

Both guys looked in great shape and ready to battle for the right to become the #1 mandatory challenger to WBC welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman.

Jermell Charlo (28-0, 13 KOs) weighed in successfully at 153 ½ pounds for his title defense against his mandatory challenger Charles Hatley (26-1-1, 17 KOs). Charlo looked really thin like he’d taken off a great deal of weight to get down to the 154lb limit.

The 26-year-old Jermell might want to consider following his brother Jermall Charlo up to middleweight in the near future because he looks like he’s not suited to be still fighting in the junior middleweight division at this point in his career. He looks too big for the division. If Jermell runs out of gas early on this Saturday night, then you can look at his eight as a potential reason. Hatley, 31, weighed in at 153.75 lbs.

The promoter for the event is Dibella Entertainment.

Where to watch the Berto vs. Porter card on TV: Showtime

Where to see it live: Barclays Center, Brooklyn, NY

Promoter: DiBella Entertainment

The start time for the televised Berto-Porter card on Showtime Championship Boxing: Beginning at 9:30 p.m. ET/6:30 p.m. PT.

“The jab will be a key to this fight,” said Porter about the Berto fight. “I can throw my jab a lot of different ways. You’ll see me using my jab a lot in this fight. Some people thought Garcia-Thurman lacked action, but I’m not worried about that for this one. I don’t condone boos. That’s just how I fight,” said Porter.

Porter, 29, has to be viewed as the favorite going into Saturday’s bout. He barely lost to Thurman last year. Berto would have a lot of problems if he fought Thurman. It’s hard to picture Berto being able to go 12 rounds against Thurman the way that Porter did. Berto doesn’t have the foot speed or the ability to pressure the way that Porter does.

There’s no question that the Berto-Porter fight is going to provide fireworks. Both of these guys need a victory in this fight to keep them in the limelight with their boxing careers. Both fighters have experienced losses in recent years, and they need to win so that they can get in position to face the winner of the Keith Thurman vs. Danny Garcia rematch in the near future. Berto, 33, has a little more mileage on him at this point.

Inactivity has been a problem for both fighters. Berto hasn’t in over a year since his win over Victor Ortiz in April last year Porter has been out of the ring for 10 months since his loss to Thurman last year in June. Porter might be less effected by the time off than Berto, because he’s the younger fighter and he hasn’t had to deal with injury problems the way he has.

Some boxing fans have been grumbling at Porter facing Berto for the WBC title eliminator instead of a better fighter. Berto was a good but not great fighter during his day, but his career is now in bad shape with him losing half of his last six fights. The ranking system doesn’t make sense in boxing unfortunately. In other sports when you have a 3-3 record in your last 3 contests, you don’t go to the playoffs.

Berto is very lucky to be fighting in the WBC eliminator match, because a lot of fighters wouldn’t be given the opportunity if they had a similar record in their last 6 fights. In fairness to Berto, he has lost to some good quality fighters in the last 6 years of his career in getting beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr., Jesus Soto Karass and Robert Guerrero. Those defeats came since 2011. Berto was also beaten by Victor Ortiz in their first fight in April 11. Berto avenged that loss last year in April in beating Ortiz in a rematch in stopping him in the 4th round.

“My brother and I aren’t getting the respect we deserve in this game,” said Jermell Charlo. “We’re still trying to prove a point and it’ll start on Saturday with this fight. This is the strongest and the fastest I’ve ever been. Hatley’s going to do what’s got to do,” said Charlo.

Charlo and his brother Jermell Charlo have overshadowed by fighters like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Miguel Cotto and Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. Jermall is starting to get a big following among the hardcore boxing fans with his impressive knockout victories, but he has a long ways to go before he catches up to the more popular fighters like Golovkin, Canelo and Cotto.

It’s not easy to build a huge following. Unless you have a big built in fan base like Canelo does in the U.S, you’ve got to slowly win over the boxing public fight by fight by scoring a lot of knockouts the way that Gennady Golovkin has done. Jermell has not shown the kind of punching power and killer instinct that his brother Jermall has shown.

Jermell is more of a pure boxer, and those type of fighters are a dime a dozen in boxing unless you have blazing hand speed like Floyd Mayweather Jr. Jermell is not a speed demon. He has respectable hand speed, but he’s not another Mayweather or Roy Jones Jr. in the hand speed department. That’s why it’s going to be harder for a guy like Jermell to win over a lot of boxing fans with his game than it would be for someone like Golovkin.

Jermell, 26, will need to develop some punching power along the way and/or get a big victory over someone like Canelo to win over the fans. Golden Boy Promotions have been selective over the years in who they match Canelo against. Both Charlo brothers have been ignored by Golden Boy as far as being matched against Canelo. You can expect that to continue into the future unless something unforeseen happens that makes them change the way they match their star.

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