By Dan Ambrose: Former two division world champion Robert Guerrero (30-1-1, 18 KO’s) will be taking a big step up in class in facing former IBF/WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (28-1, 22 KO’s) next on HBO at the Citizens Business Bank Arena, in Ontario, California, US. The 29-year-old Guerrero thinks he has the skills to compete with Berto and beat him by decision. Guerrero isn’t thinking knockout. He’s smart enough to realize that his power hasn’t carried up with him when he moved up from lightweight recently.
Guerrero said to the LA Times “He’s [Berto] slick and can change the fight with one punch, so I have to be prepared. I’ll be changing gears, changing styles. I can beat him in 12 rounds.”
Guerrero shouldn’t worry about one punch specifically, because Berto tends to get his knockouts by throwing fast combinations that wear an opponent down. He’s certainly quick, though, and the speed and power differences between him and Guerrero should be fairly startling. Berto is a natural welterweight, and not someone who is moving up in weight just based on ambition out of a desire to try and get a fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. like Guerrero.
Berto is going to be a lot of problems for Guerrero for six or more rounds. If Berto doesn’t wear down after that, Guerrero could be in for a really tough night. But even if Berto does faded in the second half of the fight, Guerrero is still going to be in a position where he may have to sweep the last six rounds to get even a draw out of the fight, because Guerrero’s not likely to win any of the early rounds in the first half of the fight. He’s too slow, too weak and too straight up.
Berto is going to do well against this kind of fighter, because Guerrero doesn’t have the tools that guys like Victor Ortiz and Luis Collazo had in their fights with Berto.
Guerrero points out that he was able to take the big power shots over Selcuk Aydin recently in his 12 round decision win over him last July. However, Aydin is nothing like Berto in terms of speed, boxing ability and sheer explosiveness. It’s going to be a much more difficult fight for Guerrero than the Aydin fight was.
Comments are closed.