By Jason Kim: Undefeated World Boxing Council welterweight champion Andre Berto (22-0, 19 KOs) will be making his first defense of his title on Saturday night against former IBF super featherweight champion and star from The Contender reality television series Steve Forbes in a 12-round title bout at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, California. This will be match-up pitting two welterweights of almost equal height and speed. However, that’s where the similarities end, as Berto is the much more powerful puncher of the two, and additionally, he’s six years younger at 25 compared to the 31 year-old Forbes.

Both fighters are seemingly going in difference directions at this point in their careers, with Forbes having lost three out of his last four bouts. In light of that, it’s hard to imagine how the WBC saw fit to rank him at #13 in the welterweight division, because he rightfully so probably doesn’t deserve to be ranked anywhere close to the top 15 when it comes down to it. He’s a good fighter, don’t get me wrong, but he’s much too small for the welterweight division and undersized against virtually every opponent he faces. Knowing this, it’s somewhat shocking that Oscar De La Hoya, a light middleweight, opted to face him in May instead of a fighter more Oscar’s size. Being two divisions bigger than the former light welterweight Forbes, it wasn’t all that of a shock that De La Hoya ended up beating Forbes by a one-sided decision.

However, Forbes fought well despite his huge size disadvantage, hitting De La Hoya often with hard single shots to the head and puffing up his face in the process. If Forbes was perhaps another four to five inches taller and had a little more reach, I have no doubts that he would have beaten De La Hoya. But, unfortunately Forbes was too small to compete against him on that night. Against Berto, who stands one inch taller than Forbes at 5’8″, there’s less of a mismatch on size, but much more of one in terms of power.

That alone will likely be too much for Forbes to handle, because he’s more of a light-hitting, boxing-type fighter who relies on his quickness and skills at moving around the ring rather than his slugging ability. Berto may not have Forbes’ boxing skills, but his power will cause him all kinds of troubles, because he won’t have the ability to escape from him due to Berto’s quickness at cutting off the ring.

This will likely be a case of a cat chasing a mouse around the ring. This fights got mismatch written all over it, and I’m wondering why Berto decided on fighting Forbes rather than a more deserving, higher ranking fighter like Luis Collazo and Miguel Cotto. The answer is simple, Berto would probably lose to one or both of them, that’s why. For all his explosive power, Berto has terrible defense, is easy to hit and is probably the weakest of the welterweight champions. At least with in facing Forbes, Berto has a chance to hold onto his welterweight title for a little while longer. Once he faces a good opponent like Cotto, Berto can kiss goodbye to his title.