By Dan Ambrose: This Saturday night two HBO fighters WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (27-0, 21 KO’s) and Victor Ortiz (28-2-2, 22 Ko’s) face off in what could be an interesting fight, only because it will likely weed one of them out of the big picture. Berto, a fighter who has a habit of facing less than stellar opponents for his title defenses, wants to win this fight so he can make a case for himself that he deserves a shot at Manny Pacquiao.

The problem is Berto still hasn’t been bringing in the big ratings in his fights on HBO, making it less than compelling for Pacquiao to bother fighting him. Ortiz lost to Marcos Maidana in 2009 in a fight in which he appeared to quit in when the going got tough for him. Ortiz has fought well when facing B level opponents since then, but when he was put in with Lamont Peterson, a decent but not great top tier fighter in his last bout, Ortiz again looked bad and had to settle for a 10 round draw.

Berto has picked a good time to fight Ortiz right after Ortiz’s struggle with Peterson. Ortiz has clearly got to fight a lot harder than he did in the Peterson fight if he wants to beat Berto. He’s got to be willing to take shots without running away and going into shutdown like he did in the Peterson and Maidana fights. Berto has seen both of those bouts and is likely going to be really taking the fight to Ortiz early on trying to get him to mentally quit on the fight.

If Ortiz can stand in there even when taking heavy shots, he could win this fight. Berto is vulnerable, but you got to be willing to trade with him to beat him. Luis Collazo exposed Berto in their fight in 2009, and Berto hasn’t been back in with him after winning a questionable decision. Ortiz needs to take a page out of Collazo’s playbook by staying in close to Berto and beating him up on the inside with uppercuts and short punches. Berto is a terrible inside fighter and Ortiz can beat him there if he’s smart.