By Allan Fox: According to Dan Rafael, Golden Boy Promotions is putting together a big fight card on July 20th or July 27th on Showtime with #10 WBC welterweight Jesus Soto-Karass (27-8-3, 17 KO’s) facing former IBFC/WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (28-2, 22 KO’s) and #1 WBO, #4 WBA, #13 IBF, Keith Thurman (20-0, 18 KO’s) battling Interim WBA World welterweight champion Diego Chaves (22-0, 18 KO’s) at a still to be determined venue.
This is a good card because we’ll find out a lot of things starting with whether Berto has anything left in the tank after having lost two out of his last three fights and looked poor in all three of them. Berto is coming off of a 12 round unanimous decision loss to Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero last November.
Berto, #15 WBC, took a beating in that fight, and was never really competitive. Guerrero didn’t do anything special other than throwing a lot of punches and roughing Berto up along the ropes, but that was all he needed to do. Berto was too tired to fight in the center of the ring and he made a calculated error by fighting with the shoulder roll defense the entire fight. Berto didn’t look comfortable with the new style and it led to him taking a lot of punishment.
Thurman, 24, easily defeated former IBF welterweight champion Jan Zaveck by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision to become WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley’s mandatory challenger. Thurman is waiting for his title shot against Bradley but he may end up having to wait an awfully long time because Bradley’s a Top Rank fighter, and his promoter is likely going to prolong the wait for Thurman.
Bradley will likely not be the WBO champion for very much longer and I’d be surprised if he ever does defend his title against Thurman.
Chaves, #1 WBA, is the mandatory challenger for WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi. He’ll be getting a shot at the winner of the Malignaggi-Adrien Broner fight real soon provided that he gets past Thurman. I doubt that Chaves will, though, because Thurman is bigger, stronger and faster than him, and I expect Thurman to get an easy knockout win.
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