By Jason Kim: WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (26-0, 20 KO’s) plans on staying at welterweight rather than moving down to the light welterweight division to pick off the young stars like Devon Alexander, Timothy Bradley, Marcos Maidana, Amir Khan and Victor Ortiz.

Berto, 26, in an article by Dan Rafael of ESPN, said “Nah, [talking about whether he would move down to the light welterweight division] maybe a catch weight if it makes sense for a huge fight. I wouldn’t go all the way down for nothing less than a mega fight. I’m staying at 147.

That’s where the all the action fights are, the mega fights.” Berto has already kind of been fighting light welterweights since 2008, since two out of his last four fights have involved Berto fighting a light welterweight who has been moving up in weight to fight Berto. Before his last fight against Carlos Quintana, Berto had been looked pretty mediocre and boring in wins over Steve Forbes, Luis Collazo and Juan Urango.

Berto finally put together a halfway decent performance in beating Quintana by an 8th round TKO on April 10th. It was a good fight for Berto, especially given that he was fighting with one arm because he had injured his left bicep.

Berto is hoping to get big money fights against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, two of the biggest stars in the welterweight division, in the future. However, if those fights don’t ever materialize for Berto, which is a real possibility, then Berto will be staying in the welterweight division for nothing.

The welterweight division isn’t deep once you get past Mayweather, Pacqjuiao and Shane Mosley. Berto could have fought Mosley but pulled out of that fight because of the earthquake in Haiti. Berto might be able to still fight the 38-year-old Mosley, but it won’t mean nearly as much now after Mosley was badly schooled by Mayweather.

At 38, Mosley won’t be around very much longer, so Berto needs to try and get a fight with him while he still can, if possible. But once those fights are exhausted, if they ever do happen, Berto will find himself facing tough guys like Saul Alvarez, Mike Jones, Joshua Clottey and Jan Zaveck for little money and a lot of risk. At that point, Berto might opt to move down in weight to the junior welterweight division where the fighters are smaller, and less powerful.