By Dan Ambrose: Former World Boxing Council (WBC) welterweight champion Andre Berto (27-1, 21 KO’s) will reportedly be facing the IBF welterweight champion Jan Zaveck (31-1, 18 KO’s) on September 3rd in Biloxi, Mississippi.

It sounds like a bad idea for a venue, but perhaps they figure it won’t do well in more traditional venues like Las Vegas or Atlantic City. Zaveck, who is thought by many boxing fans to be a paper champion, is a complete unknown in the United States.

It’s interesting that Berto would pick him to fight for a title against rather than the guy that just hammered him Victor Ortiz and took away his title in a 12 round decision last April. Zaveck has held the IBF title for the past two years, and has defended it against largely weak opposition.

In that regard, Zaveck has a lot in common with Berto. He held the World Boxing Council title for three long years and exclusively fought either weak welterweight opposition or smaller light welterweights. During that time Berto only fought one fighter you can good and that fighter beat him.

One can only imagine who Berto will be facing if he’s able to capture the IBF belt off of Zaveck. We could see another three years of dull opponents as Berto milks the IBF belt like he did the WBC. Hopefully, HBO doesn’t show these fights. It’s so boring to watch Berto’s mismatches against obscure and/or weak opposition.

Berto should beat Zaveck without too many problems. Zaveck can punch a little but he’s not much of a boxer, and has little in the way of hand speed. He’s not someone like Ortiz who will throw a lot of punches and try to wear Berto down. Instead, Zaveck will throw his hard power shots mostly one at a time, and lose round after round.

Zaveck shouldn’t try to change his game too much, because he is what he is – a slow pot shot fighter. He can’t physically do what Ortiz did with Berto, and would be wasting his time to even try. Berto wins this but big deal. The question is not whether Berto will win it, but whether he’ll look awful doing it. I just care about HBO showing his mismatches in the future. I think they need to cut their losses and start showing more exciting fights and fighters instead of Berto taking on one little known overmatched opponent after another.