By Dave Lahr: When looking at the last three fights for WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto, I’ve noticed that he’s become less interesting to watch as he’s started clinching more often. The clinching didn’t used to be a part of Berto’s game, because he was more of an all action type fighter up until the fight where he fought Steve Forbes.

Something changed around that fight for Berto and he became much more economical with his punches, tending to grab more than he did in the past.

In Berto’s last three bouts since winning the World Boxing Council welterweight title with a win over the little known Miguel Angel Rodriguez, Andre’s underperformed against Forbes, Luis Collazo and now Juan Urango, spending a good portion of each of these fights clinching frequently.

Berto had a lot of hype built up on him prior to him winning the WBC welterweight title with many boxing writers in the media positively gushing about Berto’s blazing fast hand speed and good power.

Indeed, Berto does have great hand speed and good – not great – power in each hand. However, his chin, lack of defense and stamina seem to be his main weaknesses. Against the lesser competition that Berto faced before capturing the WBC title, he was a much more exciting fighter, rarely clinching and showing off his speed and power beating the likes of Michel Trabant, David Estrada, Cosme Rivera and a whole bunch of C and D class fighters that most people have never heard of.

Berto was far from boring back then and was someone interesting to watch because of his all offense style of fighting. The fight with Rivera, Estrada, Forbes, and Collazo, which turned out to be much tougher victories than Berto expected, seemed to have changed Berto as fighter.

Berto took punishment in each of these bouts and began to resort to punching and immediately clinching afterwards. The constant clinching by Berto has made him almost unwatchable as a fighter as far as I’m concerned. Berto is no longer scoring knockouts and is winning by the old fashioned punch and clinch style of fighting, which is a style that has been used at times by notable fighters like John Ruiz and Bernard Hopkins among many others.

It’s a style that is very effective, yet boring as anything you can imagine for boxing fans to have to watch. It seems like a strange style for a fighter as young and as fast as Berto. He’s still winning the dull style, although in the case of Collazo not by much.

Since Berto began to clinch frequently in his bouts, he’s about as interesting to watch fight as looking at paint drying. Berto may not see the interest in changing his style of fighting with him still winning his fights by his punch and clinch technique.

However, Berto may want to consider changing it because his fights are hard to watch as of late with the clinching and running that he’s doing. Perhaps he might not care, but judging from all the negative comments that are being made about Berto’s dull fight against Urango last Saturday night, Berto needs to consider making some changes if he wants to keep the fans interest alive for him.

Boxing is about entertainment and fighters that do a lot of clinching like Berto has been doing often fall out of favor, especially when their fights are getting shown on cable networks on a frequent basis. Boxing is competing with many other sports and shows on cable and if a fighter like Berto is putting people to sleep with dull fights filled with clinching and running, he could negatively effect interest at least with fans wanting to see his fights.

Berto has had it easy in the past three fights mixing it up with several good opponents in Urango, Collazo and Forbes, but let’s be real about this, none of these guys are in the league of Shane Mosley, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Paul Williams and Miguel Cotto. These are the top welterweights in the division that Berto should be looking to fight if he wants to make big money.

However, as bad as Berto had looked in the last three fights, I personally don’t think he belongs in the same ring with any of these guys. Not only do I see him being destroyed if here to fight them, but I think the fights would likely be boring if Berto were to fight them in the same clinching style that he’s been showing as of late.

Right now, I don’t even know how they could market a fight like this unless Berto were to make a compete turnaround with his fighting style and show it in the ring with three or four good wins over quality opposition. I’d like to see that happening. No more fights against smaller light welterweights like Urango or ex-light welterweights like Forbes.