King wants to put together Berto vs. Kotelnik in November – News

By Boxing News - 08/13/2010 - Comments

Image: King wants to put together Berto vs. Kotelnik in November – NewsBy Jason Kim: Promoter Don King is looking to put together a fight between World Boxing Council welterweight champion Andre Berto (26-0, 20 KO’s) and former WBA light welterweight champion Andriy Kotelnik (31-4-1, 13 KO’s) for November of this year, and wants the winner of that fight to fight the winner of the January 29th fight between IBF/WBC junior welterweight champion Devon Alexander vs. WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley.

In other words, King is looking for an eventual Berto vs. Bradley fight at some point next year. Berto will be too big, too fast and too strong for the light welterweight Kotelnik, and we already saw how terrible Alexander looked against Kotelnik last week.

Alexander has basically no chance against Bradley. In an article by Michael Marley at Examiner.com, King had this to say about Berto, Kotelnik, Bradley and Alexander: “I just spoke to HBO. Kotelnik can be ready for November, no problem. I’m keeping the kid here, keeping him at my training camp in Ohio. He trained there to fight Devon. That was a great fight last Saturday night in St. Louis but Devon won it.”

I think more than a few boxing fans will disagree with King about the winner of the Alexander vs. Kotelnik bout. But never the less, Alexander looked amateurish and was exposed by Kotelnik in that fight. King can try to whitewash the end results anyway he wants but the fact is Alexander looked poor and does not look to be in the same class as Bradley.

Alexander is obviously good enough to be a champion somewhere, but he’s going to lose both of his titles against Bradley. And I think Amir Khan would do a number on Alexander as well, as long as the fight wasn’t held in Saint Louis, Missouri.

Alexander can be a champion once those guys move out of the division, and provided that Alexander stays away from them and Marcos Maidana, who I think would knock Alexander out if given the chance.

King had this to say about whether Kotelnik can come back by November and fight again: “Hell, yes, we want that Berto fight.”

He may be able to come back, but I think he’s going to lose. Berto has too much size on Kotelnik for him to compete with him. But this is Berto’s third fight against a light welterweight since winning the WBC welterweight title in 2008.

I don’t know what it is but Berto keeps fighting junior welterweights for some reason. Out of the four times that he’s defending the title, two of them have come against smaller light welterweights.

I wonder if Berto is purposefully being steered towards smaller fighters. Heck, Berto might as well move down in weight to the junior welterweight division. Then he could really have at it.



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