By Chris Williams: Talent, speed, and a brittle chin, World Boxing Council welterweight champion Andre Berto (23-0, 19 KOs) has all of them. The unvarnished truth about Berto is that he’s a talented fighter but one loaded with flaws, starting with his chin and ending with his limited 5’8″ size, small for a welterweight. Some people see him as a poor man’s Floyd Mayweather Jr., except that Mayweather was good at blocking punches and making his opponents miss.
Berto, on the other hand, is very hittable, even by the mostly lesser fighters that he’s fought up until. On January 17th, Berto, sadly, will be facing his best opponent of his five year professional boxing career when he fights Luis Collazo (29-3, 14 KOs), a former WBA welterweight champion, and his current number #1 ranked challenger to his WBC title.
Blessed with zero power but a lot of speed, Collazo is a fighter that reminds one of Paulie Malignaggi, a fast fighter but way under-equipped against the bigger punchers in the light welterweight division like Ricky Hatton.
Collazo, an excellent counter puncher, must hope that he can get in enough shots while avoiding the powerful and fast combinations of Berto and somehow squeak out a decision. That’s not likely to happen. Though, I suppose, it would be a victory of some sorts if Collazo is still standing at the end of the fight and isn’t splayed out on the canvas like many of Berto’s other opponents.
This isn’t to say that Berto is all that great, because he’s clearly not. His chin, which has given him trouble in a couple of his fights, his lack of defense and his limited size, will probably continue to be a problem for him in the future once he starts taking on better opponents in the welterweight division like Miguel Cotto, Antonio Margarito, Paul Williams, Joshua Clottey, Kermit Cintron or Carlos Quintana.
Berto, naturally, could avoid all those guys and stay on top for awhile longer, but he’d be drastically reducing his potential earning power because the WBC isn’t exactly stacked with a lot stars or formidable opposition for Berto.
Collazo, 27, has had problems since losing his WBA welterweight title in a close 12-round decision loss to Hatton in 2006. Collazo would lose again in a one-sided loss to Shane Mosley in 2007, a fight where Collazo never stood a chance against the more highly skilled Mosley. The fight with Mosley showed that Collazo’s defense isn’t the problem.
It’s his lack of serious power or size to beat the faster and more powerful punchers in the division. Now, Mosley isn’t very big himself, but his offense if much better than Collazo’s and as a result, he was able to easily beat him and further expose Collazo’s anemic offense. You can expect Berto to do the same thing on January 17th.
While it’s nice that Collazo will be able to make Berto miss with a lot of his punches and will be able to counter him with shots at times, but without a quality offense going for him, Collazo is going to end up getting beaten black and blue by Berto.
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