By Jim Dower: Former World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Carlos Quintana (27-2, 21 KO’s) will be facing unbeaten WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto on April 10th, at the BankAtlantic Center, in Sunrise, Florida. By far, this is the biggest fight of Berto’s six year pro career. Berto has been matched fairly softly throughout his career with arguably his hardest match coming against the light hitting Luis Collazo last year in January. Berto recently beat light welterweight Juan Urango by a 12 round decision in May 2009, which was Berto’s second fight against a light welterweight in the past year.
Of the three title defenses Berto has made while holding down the WBC welterweight title, two of the three defenses have come against light welterweights. Thankfully, Berto broke that pattern with Quintana. Berto was supposed to have fought Shane Mosley in January, but Berto pulled out of the fight due to an earthquake that struck Haiti, which killed some of Berto’s family members.
Berto looked really poor in beating Collazo last year, winning the fight by a comfortable decision on the judges’ scorecards but in reality struggling badly against him. Quintana, 33, is a superb boxer, who moves well and is hard to hit. Quintana could give Berto more problems than he can handle if his chin holds out. Quintana gave Paul Williams his first and only loss of his career in beating him by a 12 round decision in February 2008.
Williams would later avenge the defeat by stopping Quintana in the 1st round four months later in June 2008. Quintana was also stopped in the 5th round by December 2006. However, apart from those loses, Quintana is very hard to beat. Berto likely won’t be able to out-box a skilled fighter like Quintana so you can look for Berto to come out slugging to try and get Quintana out of there as early as possible.
The longer this fight goes, the better the chance that Quintana pounds out a decision and takes Berto’s title. In the past three fights, Berto, at one time a slugger, has become a hit and hold type fighter. Berto formerly had a crowd pleasing style of fighting with lots of flashy combinations. Now, however, he tends to punch and grab all the time, making him hard to watch.
That style has been effective against Berto’s last three opponents, but none of them have the moment that Quintana will be showing against Berto. If Berto is to win this fight, he’s going to have to open up with his offense and throw a lot of punches. Quintana won’t be standing in front of him, so he won’t be able to rush him and grab like he’s been doing. The good thing is if Quintana wins we’ll finally have an interesting champion. Berto hasn’t been an exciting fighter since he won the title in 2008.
Quintana stopped Jesse Feliciano in the 3rd round in December. Quintana looked very good in that fight in reducing Feliciano, a slugger like Berto, into a harmless punching bag.
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