By Dave Lahr: Undefeated WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (23-0, 19 KOs) will be facing his biggest test of his young, four year professional career against former WBA welterweight champion Luis Collazo (29-3, 14 KOs) on January 17th at the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino, in Biloxi, Mississippi. Berto, 25, has fought mostly limited opponents up to this point, and looked both good and bad in beating tough B-class fighters like Miguel Angel Rodriguez, Michael Trabant and Cosme Rivera. Berto, a former 2004 Olympian for the Haiti team, has a combination of excellent hand speed, power and high volume work rate.
However, he also has shown a tendency to get hit a lot in his fights, and hurt by not necessarily big punchers. Because of this, Berto remains as one of the most exciting fighters in the welterweight division, perhaps the most entertaining fighter next to Antonio Margarito.
Berto was shockingly dropped in his fight against Cosme Rivera in July 2007, getting knocked down by a huge left uppercut near the end of the 6th. Berto was extremely fortunate that the knockdown occurred near the end of the round, as there was only 10 seconds left and not enough time for Rivera to add to the knockdown.
Berto was then conveniently delayed in going out for the 7th, when his trainer decided to change one of Berto’s gloves, a move which gave Berto extra time to recover. Berto then went out and fought well in the 7th, no longer showing effects of the prior knockdown. For the remainder of the fight, Berto controlled the action and won a 10-round decision.
Similarly, Berto had a lot of problems beating Estrada, taking a lot of punishment from him before eventually wearing Estrada down and taking him out in the 11th round in September 2007. Berto’s face was badly swollen by the end of the fight, making it hard to tell who the winner of the fight was by looking at him and Estrada. The victory seemed to suggest that Berto has a lot of work cut out for him if he wanted to belong to the top echelon in the welterweight division.
However, defense is probably going to remain a problem for Berto for the remainder of his career, because of his busy style. He takes too many chances with his offense, which makes him an entertaining fighter, but also makes him susceptible to taking shots from his opponents.
Collazo, 27, held onto to the WBA welterweight title briefly from 2005 to 2006, losing it to Ricky Hatton in a controversial 12-round decision loss in May 2006. Collazo staggered Hatton in the 12th, and appeared to do enough to get the victory over the British fighter.
However, Hatton, the more popular fighter, got the nod by the judges. A year later, Collazo lost a one-sided 12-round decision to Shane Mosley in February 2007. The fight seemed to be a bad match-up style-wise for Collazo, as Mosley had too much speed and counter punching ability for Collazo to handle. Recently, Collazo has rebounded well from that defeat, beating Edvan Dos Santos Barros and Russell Jordan in 2008.
Berto should be able to win this fight without too many problems, as Collazo has little power to speak of, and gets by mostly on his speed and counter punching ability. That means that he’ll be landing a lot of shots against Berto, but without power, Berto won’t respect him and will likely walk right through him and win by a easy decision.
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