By Jim Dower: WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (27-0, 21 KO’s) will be defending his title against Victor Ortiz (28-2-2, 22 KO’s) on April 16th at the Foxwoods Resort Casino, Mashantucket, Connecticut. Also on the card is mandatory challenger Selcuk Aydin (20-0, 15 KO’s), who will be fighting in an eight round bout against a still to be determined opponent.

Aydin is hoping to fight the winner of the Berto-Aydin fight if he can look good enough to get HBO interested, according to Dan Rafael. If not, we could be seeing Adyin paid to step aside for a third time while Berto looks to fight someone else.

It’s interesting that Berto is facing Ortiz rather than a ranked welterweight. However, there are no opponents that HBO is interested in seeing Berto fight right now in the top 15 that the WBC has currently ranked. Ortiz, although a light welterweight, is somewhat popular and had an exciting fight against Marcos Maidana in 2009 on HBO.

Ortiz is reportedly having problems making weight for his light welterweight bouts and appears to have grown out of the division. This will be a good opportunity for Ortiz to gauge how well he can handle the welterweights, because Berto is considered a top five fighter in the division.

Ortiz had been looking good until recently when he fought to a disappointing 10 round draw with Lamont Peterson in December. Ortiz fought much too defensively and gave away a sure win by choosing to box Peterson after having him twice on the canvas in the 3rd. Before that fight, Ortiz had won four consecutive fights, including wins over Nate Campbell and Vivian Harris. The new defensive style that Ortiz used in the Peterson fight doesn’t seem to suit him, as he’s more of a power puncher rather than a defensive guy.

Berto, 27, is coming off an impressive 1st round TKO over Freddy Hernandez in November. However, most of Berto’s opponents have been the soft variety rather than dangerous guys that could potentially beat him like Mike Jones. Berto doesn’t seem to be any rush to fight Jones or Kermit Cintron.