By Jason Kim: In what will very possibly be the best fight of the year, Victor Ortiz (29-2-2, 22 KO’s), moving up in weight from the light welterweight division, pulled off a huge upset by beating WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (27-1, 21 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Foxwoods Resort Casino, in Mashantucket, Connecticut.

The judges’ scores were 114-111, 114-112, 115-110, all for the 24-year-old Ortiz. Both fighters were down two times each, although Berto appeared to have been knocked down another time in the 1st round but the referee appeared to blow the call by ruling it a slip. Except for a knock down in the 2nd and 6th, Ortiz dominated the fight from the 1st round. He was the stronger fighter and the much busier fighter throughout.

Berto, 27, seemed to never fully recover after getting dropped by a huge left hand late in the 1st round. Although Berto would continue to fight hard at times for the remainder of the fight, his legs were unable to carry him in the center of the ring. He seemed to only be able to fight on the ropes playing a poor version or rope-a-dope. In this case, Ortiz was easily able to drive power punches through the gloves of Berto. In between rounds, Berto’s trainer practically begged him to stay off the ropes, but again and again, Berto would find himself on the ropes in every round taking shots and not fighting well. Ortiz seemed to take a page out of the playbook of Marcos Maidana by staying in close with Berto and hurting him with short power punches.

Ortiz didn’t really need to fight at a distance because he was much more effective in close where he was able to throw a high volume of punches in every round. Berto was dangerous in the center of the ring or at a distance, but in close he was much more vulnerable.

After the fight, Ortiz confessed that he knew that Berto couldn’t fight well in close after seeing him struggle against Luis Collazo, and this was Ortiz’s strategy to beat Berto. It was clearly effective, as Berto just looked tired out of his element while hanging on the ropes.

In the opening round, Ortiz just came out much faster than Berto seemed to be ready for. Ortiz wasn’t messing around with throwing jabs; it was all power shots and he quickly had Berto retreating after knocking him down once with a left hand. The referee didn’t count the knockdown, but he had no choice to count the second one because Berto took a knee while getting hammered in the corner.

Ortiz and Berto traded power shots in the 2nd round with Ortiz getting the better of the action. However, Berto was able to drop Ortiz with a right hand late in the round. Ortiz walked into the shot and was knocked backwards onto the canvas in a knockdown that was more of a balance shot than a true knockdown.

In rounds three through five, Ortiz dominated the action with his heavy pressure and hard power punches. Berto spent the better part of each round trying to fight off the ropes and doing a bad job of it.

In the 6th, Berto hurt Ortiz with a huge right hand and then nailed Ortiz with another blistering right to put him down hard. Ortiz got back to his feet and looked badly hurt. Berto then went for broke trying to finish him off, unloading with everything he had to try and get the stoppage. Unfortunately for Berto, he forgot all about his defense and was nailed by two big left hands from Ortiz and dropped. Ortiz just had a look on his face as if he was tired of getting hit by Berto and just came back with a big left hand that momentarily stopped Berto in his tracks. Ortiz, noticing how well his first left hand had done, fired another that put Berto down. The knockdown basically took the starch out of Berto, because he didn’t seem to be the same fighter after this. He continued to fight but that knockdown – or maybe the exertion that he had put in while trying to finish Ortiz off – took all the remaining competitive energy out of Berto.

From rounds seven through twelve, Ortiz took the fight to a tired and beaten Berto, punishing him against the ropes and an enormous amount of shots. The only thing that slightly disrupted this period of domination is when the referee Mike Ortega took a point away from Ortiz for hitting Berto on the side of his head while Berto was bending forward. It was a very questionable call but thankfully it didn’t change the outcome of the fight.

All in all, it was a good win for Ortiz, proving his critics wrong about him not having the heart to fight hard and take shots. He took Berto’s best punches and came back with power shots of his own. Ortiz was clearly the better fighter. Berto looked lumped up around the face at the end of the fight and looked depressed. Ortiz now finds himself in the running for fights against guys like Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao. It’s not likely that Ortiz will get a shot against Pacquiao, though, because the Filipino star fights for Top Rank and Ortiz fights for Golden Boy Promotions. But at least Ortiz has the WBC title now and we can look forward to seeing him take on some interesting challengers in the future.