By Jason Kim: Andre Berto (27-1, 21 KO’s) faces IBF welterweight champion Jan Zaveck (31-1, 18 KO’s) tonight at the Beau Rivage Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. Berto, 27, will be trying to bounce back from a loss in his last fight against Victor Ortiz to recapture one of the four welterweight titles and to ensure that his fights keep getting shown on HBO.

Many of Berto’s fights in the past three years have lacked excitement because he’s failed to take on anyone that could really test. He’s added to that problem by picking up a bad habit of clinching a lot, which may have been something he had to do to cover up a conditioning problem.

In his fight with Ortiz last April, Berto’s lack of conditioning was badly exposed when Ortiz forced him to fight a lot harder than he wanted to. The result was a decrepit looking Berto needing to rest with his back against the ropes for much of the fight like someone in their 40s rather than only 27.

Unlike other Berto bouts, the fight ended up being exciting but mostly because of the pressure that Ortiz was putting on Berto. Nevertheless, the loss out of the way and the question now is whether Berto can improve on the mistakes he made in that fight. He’s got someone he should be able to beat no matter how poor his conditioning is. Berto can beat Zaveck fighting with his usual punch and grab technigue. It probably won’t even matter if Berto has to rest with his back against the ropes all night.

He’ll still likely beat Zaveck, but we’ll have to see. Zaveck will have watched the Ortiz-Berto fight and by now realizes that Berto can be beaten with pressure and a high workrate. Zaveck doesn’t have to load up with his shots to beat Berto. All he has to do is throw a lot of moderately hard punches to get his work rate up to 80 to 100 punches per round, stay in close and don’t give Berto any room to get leverage on his shots.

This is exactly what Ortiz did, and it’s probably still a good bet that this style will work on Berto now. To be sure, Zaveck will have to have a good chin to win the fight, but he should be able to if he can stay close enough to avoid Berto’s big shots.