By Matt Stein: I don’t want to sound overly harsh about WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto’s performance against Luis Collazo on Saturday night, but I got to be frank, he looked positively terrible in there. If you don’t mind seeing unskilled brawlers fight, then I suppose Berto made the fight worth watching but not for me. He took far too much punishment against an opponent that he should have been able to walk right through if he was as good as some people say he is.
Starting with the left hand that Berto got tagged with in the 1st round from Collazo that sent Berto reeling across the ring as if he had been shot out of a cannon, sending him into the ropes briefly. Things didn’t get much better for Berto in the next few rounds, as he let Collazo control the pace of the fight and dictate the terms.
Even though Berto showed some good work late in the fight to pull out the win, I thought he should have been able to beat Collazo much easier than he did. It was clear that Collazo had no chance in the fight unless he was able to fight on the inside.
Berto’s corner realized this early on and attempted to persuade him to keep the fight at a distance to prevent Collazo from landing his short punches on the inside. Berto, though, let Collazo back inside repeatedly in the fight. Why he did, I have no idea. Collazo wasn’t pressuring Berto like normal inside fighters do.
Instead, Collazo would casually walk up to Berto with both hands down in front of him and would get inside that way, most of the time without getting hit with anything from Berto on the way in. I don’t know about you, but if a fighter has their hands down in front of them the way that Collazo did, I’m going to drill them with a right hand or left hook and try to put them down.
Yet in Berto’s case, he looked both confused and afraid, as if he didn’t know how to figure out Collazo. He seemed to be thinking way too much and not letting his hands go nearly enough. I’m all for thinking, especially when it comes to keeping a fighter from getting inside on me, but Berto just seemed unable to learn from his mistakes during the fight. Who knows?
Maybe Collazo knocked something loose in Berto’s head with some of the left hands he nailed Berto with in the fight. I saw so many things I would have done differently if it were me out there fighting Collazo instead of Berto.
Andre may have some extraordinary offensive weapons but he often uses poor judgment in his fights and doesn’t seem to stick to his game plan. He was lucky on Saturday night. If this were a more offensively talented fighter than Collazo, Berto would have probably been beaten – or worse – knocked out. Taken as a whole, I give him a C- for his performance against Collazo. Berto did enough with his late rally in the last two rounds to pull out the fight but he should have had to do this if he were fighting smart instead of getting by on just his physical abilities.
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