By Sean McDaniel: 2011 was supposed to be the year that WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (27-0, 21 KO’s) would finally start taking on some credible opponents so that he could become a more marketable fighter after having spent the past two years fighting smaller light welterweights and fluff welterweights when defending his World Boxing Council title.

But it now looks like Berto may be delaying his fights against the bigger named fighters to take on another fluff opponent in 36-year-old Randall Bailey (41-7, 36 KO’s). According to the latest news, Bailey is being strongly considered as an opponent for the 27-year-old Berto’s next fight.

If this was a fight that Berto had taken a couple of years ago when Berto first captured the WBC title against Miguel Angel Rodriguez, then fight fans would surely have looked the other way. However, Berto has done nothing but take on beatable fighters since capturing his title and Bailey is more of the same of what Berto has been facing.

If this fight is made it is going to be interesting if HBO will serve it for fans to gawk at. Despite having fought no one in the two years that Berto has been the WBC champion, HBO has been televising all of his fights no matter what. After Berto’s last title defense against the little known Freddy Hernandez, there was talk of Berto finally facing a life body.

Well, if Bailey gets selected, then you’ll know that Berto and his team have opted to stay the course and continue with the easy title defenses as the milking process continues. Bailey has good power, but every time he steps it up against a good fighter he gets beaten. He was stopped in the 11th round by Juan Urango in August 2009. Bailey has also lost to Herman Ngoudjo, Miguel Cotto, Ishe Smith, DeMarcus Corley and Elner Julio.

He did stop Jackson Osei Bonsu in the 1st round in March 2010 but that’s really saying much. Bailey can punch but his chin is weak and he’s pretty old. Again, this would be a good opponent if Berto had been facing quality guys all along, but he’s had it easy during his career and still doesn’t have one big name on his resume. It’s hard to see him as a potential opponent for Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather Jr. because Berto never fights anyone worth mentioning.