By Dan Ambrose: WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (26-0, 20 KO’s) will apparently be fighting number #11 WBC ranked welterweight contender Freddy Hernandez (29-1, 20 KO’s) on the undercard of the Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Michael Katsidis card next month on November 27th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegs, Nevada. For the 27-year-old Berto, the little known Hernandez is probably a step up from the kinds of opponents he’s been facing since he captured the WBC title in 2008. However, it’s not the exciting opponent that many boxing fans were hoping Berto would finally be facing after all these years.

Berto and number #2 WBC contender Selcuk Aydin were unable to successfully negotiate a fight between them. There’s talk that Aydin wasn’t happy with the location and the money for the fight. This leaves Berto to pick an alternative and it looks like it’s going to be the 31-year-old Hernandez who gets to be the lucky man. Berto should be able to take care of Hernandez without a lot of problems. Hernandez can punch a little but he has only limited experience against top level opposition, so he’s likely going to struggle against Berto.

Berto took out Carlos Quintana in the 8th round in his last fight in April. That was arguably the best performance of Berto’s career, but it came against an opponent that was perfect for him due to Quintana’s lack of power and problems taking hard punchers. Berto still hasn’t faced a big puncher and Hernandez is probably about the strongest guy that Berto has faced yet, and he’s not a huge puncher by any stretch of the imagination.

A lot of hardcore boxing fans are less than pleased with Berto, feeling that he’s been milking his WBC title for the past two years and taking easy fight. Berto could quiet all of the criticism if he would just break his pattern of taking on either smaller or soft punching fighters and take on a quality fighter that boxing fans respect. A lot of fans resent the fact that Berto’s fights are regularly aired by HBO, despite Berto not being entertaining and fighting guys that boxing fans don’t want to see. It looks like fans will have to continue to wait for Berto to finally step it up a little while longer. However, at least this fight isn’t a main event fight.