By Allan Fox: After a couple years of poor success, former IBF/WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (29-3, 22 KOs) finds himself with a huge mountain he has to climb in order to get back to the top of the welterweight division.
Berto, 31, has lost three out of his last five fights and looked poor in all five of the fights. Berto recently defeated Steve Chambers by a 10 round decision last September in what has to be seen as a comeback fight for Berto.
Before that fight, Berto had been out of the ring for over a year since his 12th round knockout loss to Jesus Soto Karass in July of 2013. It was good that Berto was able to beat Chambers, but it wasn’t an impressive enough performance to suggest that he could go much beyond that fight to beat 1st tier fighters and champions. It was just a simple win over a 2nd tier guy for Berto, and not a huge victory.
Berto has things going for him as far as having adviser Al Haymon to direct his career, and trainer Virgil Hunter to train him. Haymon will likely make sure that he matches Berto against guys that he feels very confident that he beat. You can expect Berto to be continually matched against fighters that are not on his level until he gets an eventual world title shot at some point.
I would think that Berto will be put in with anyone with even a hint of a chance of beating him until gets another title shot in the future. That’s good and it’s bad. It’s good that Berto will likely get a world title fight if he can keep winning, but it’s potentially bad if he’s not ready for that title shot when the time comes due to the weak opposition that he’s been fed.
Berto needs to be matched against guys that are talented enough to give him a taste of what he’ll be experiencing when he faces one of the champions. If Berto folds when facing contenders then so be it, but he’s got to face good enough opposition to keep him sharp.
In the past four years, Berto has suffered losses to Victor Ortiz, Robert Guerrero and Soto-Karass. It’s hard to believe that Berto’s career has sunk so badly since 2012. In 2011, he beat Jan Zaveck to win the IBF welterweight title. But after that, Berto lost the title in his next fight against Guerrero in 2012, and then was beaten by Soto-Karass.
Berto experimented with the shoulder roll in the Guerrero and Soto-Karass fights and was really pounded by those guys. Berto didn’t seem to know how to properly use the shoulder roll, and this led to him taking a lot of punishment in those fights. Berto is now no longer using the shoulder roll defense, but it may not better. He’s got to improve his stamina and show that he can fight hard enough for the full three minutes of every round to beat the top fighters at 147.
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