Forget
rankings, titles, money or TV dates. Respect is the hardest thing to earn in
boxing. From the first bell a fighter hears to the last, respect of an opponent
and most importantly, the crowd, is the thing he is fighting for. All the rest
comes with it. WBC welterweight titleholder Andre Berto has HBO dates, huge
paychecks, the aforementioned belt and a place atop the barren welterweight
division. What he doesn’t have is the respect of the crowd. That might be
because he is the poster child for his adviser Al Haymon’s shadowy hold on HBO,
allowingBertoto make paychecks like his $900,000 for
nine-punch performance against soft touch Freddy Hernandez last November. It
might also be because he twice turned down fights withShane Mosley, once because there was an
earthquake in Haiti (where Berto lost relatives and loved ones) and the other
times because Berto wanted an even split and the fight to not be in Mosley’s
native Los Angeles. Or it could be simply because fans still hold a close
win overLuis Collazoin January of 2009 against him.
Whatever the case, Berto has everything a 27-year-old fighter hitting the prime
of fighting life could want except the one thing money, fame, and winning a
vacant title can’t get you: respect. That might just changeSaturday nightwhen he faces “Vicious” Victor Ortiz
at the Foxwoods Resort and Casino in Mashantucket, CT, live on HBO (9:45 PM
ET/6:45 PT).
“I
feel I’ll always get a little criticism,” Berto said on a recent conference
call. “A lot of people believe in my skills and potential. I’m fighting Victor
Ortiz. I’m going in with a guy with a lot of speed and power. He’s going to
bring some action and try to prove himself. At the end of the day, I don’t
listen to criticism. You need balls to step in the ring against anybody. I’m
comfortable in myself and my true fans believe.”
Just
how many “true fans” Berto has is a matter of some debate. When Berto, a
fighter of Haitian descent who hails from Miami, Florida, foughtCarlos
Quintanain April
of 2010 at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida, benefiting survivors of
the Haiti earthquake, he sold a total of 900 tickets. That he made close to a
million dollars to do it speaks to Haymon’s odd sway with HBO. It also speaks to
the fact that while he may be exciting at times in the ring, he has yet to
resonate with the public for whatever reason. For hardcore fans, Berto’s rise
to the WBC title is cause to view him with a questioning eye. In an era of
multiple titles in each weight class, Berto got his the new-fashioned way: he
fought for it after it was vacated by fellow Haymon stablemateFloyd Mayweatheragainst Miguel Angel Rodriguez back in
June 2008 and since then has defended the belt five times, twice against solid
opposition and three times against tailor-made opponents. Two of those came
from the junior welterweight division, hardly cause for boxing fans to get
excited.
Now
Berto is fighting Ortiz, a 24-year-old southpaw who was once thought to be a
top contender at junior welterweight. However, following a six-round TKO loss toMarcos
Maidana, Ortiz is now thought to be damaged goods. Still, Ortiz
is a southpaw, which, early on in Berto’s reign, was something that troubled
him in the Collazo fight. Many are pointing to that fight as evidence he will
have trouble here. Berto thinks otherwise.
“They’re
making a mistake if they’re watching the Collazo fight,” said Berto. “It was
close but I wasn’t prepared mentally or physically. It was the worst I’ll ever
look. I’ve had tremendous sparring, non-stop, getting familiar with his style –
southpaw angles – mentally getting prepared for those punches. Luis Collazo is
a tough veteran. On my end, I wasn’t in shape like I was supposed to [be].
That’s a mistake fighters on the rise go on and don’t take [fights] as
seriously as some. It almost cost me the fight. I made that fight tough. Luis
Collazo is tough; give him credit.”
Perhaps
this is where some of the criticism comes from, as other younger fighters like
Floyd Mayweather andChad Dawson,to name two, had close fights with
Jose Luis Castillo and Glen Johnson respectively. They took heavy criticism
with those wins and rematched the fighters in order to right the ship of public
opinion. Berto never did that. Though both blame each other for the fight not
happening, the fact remains that Berto’s title reign seems run by someone other
than him.
To
Berto’s credit, Collazo went back up to 154 pounds following that fight and
remained there idle until this week when he returns after a long layoff against
Franklin Gonzalez tomorrow night.
When
you look at Ortiz, he does present problems for Berto. He moves well and,
unlike Steve Forbes andJuan Urango (who moved up in weight to face Berto),
Ortiz has always had a welterweight frame. He is a half-inch taller than Berto,
carries nice power and speed and can be both mobile and aggressive in a come-forward
style. Like Berto, who was dropped early in his career by an oldCosme Riveraand hurt by Collazo who is not known
as a power puncher, Ortiz’s chin is questionable. What separates them, beyond
Berto being a natural, acclimated welterweight, is experience.
“How
do you figure his competition [is high level]?” Berto asked a reporter. “I fought
Collazo, Urango and Quintana, who beat Paul Williams. They say the fighters
I’ve fought are a lower level of competition. I won’t get credit that I deserve
[after the Ortiz fight]. I just keep knocking guys out. Talk doesn’t make a
difference. Every time I step in with ‘em I’ll make it look like that [easy].”
Recently,
Ortiz took onLamont
Peterson, a contender at 140 pounds, who poses problems
physically but does not have one aspect of his game that stands out enough to
take out the elite of the division. Still, he held Ortiz to a draw after “Vicious”
Victor had him down early and was seemingly in control of the fight. As much as
we deride him, Berto gets the job done and has shown both toughness and
resiliency in the ring. The same cannot be said for Ortiz.
“Victor
Ortiz is a good kid and can fight,” said Berto. “He is limited in a lot of
areas. He’s trying to box but needs to be set on his feet to throw punches.
He’s a tough kid. Lamont Peterson, later in the fight, hit him with a lot of
tough shots. If I had hit him like that, he probably would go to sleep. He
definitely comes to fight.”
Berto,
on the other hand, struggled with the southpaw Collazo but seemed to learn from
his mistakes when he faced Quintana and stopped him in eight rounds despite a
torn bicep suffered in the fight.
“I’m
feeling sharp,” said Berto. “It’s always different going in against a southpaw.
It’s been going well and now I’m hurting southpaws anytime, almost second
nature. There should be no problem at all.”
Regardless
of Berto’s lack of regard for Ortiz, the challenger is still a dangerous
opponent and Berto will have to be on his game to defeat him and do it in
style. Some may call this a battle of overrated fighters. Me? I see two flawed
but aggressive fighters who together can make for an exciting (if short) night
at the fights. Both men have a lot to prove in this fight. Berto will be
looking for a signature win against a dangerous opponent, never mind that Ortiz
has been stopped before. Never mind he is coming up in weight. Ortiz knows this
is the Last Chance Saloon and despite what Berto may say or think, that makes
him a very dangerous man Saturday night.
“Skills
pay the bills. I can outpower him; I can outskill him, any way it goes,” said
Berto. “What showed in the Maidana fight, maybe he feels that he has a lot more
to prove and he’s willing to die to prove it. I have a heart of a lion – where
it comes from, how I’m built. There’s no question about my heart. I have to
question his on everything from one situation, when he had to endure
controversy – he didn’t like to crack back. At the end of the day, you can’t
teach what beats in the chest. You either have it- heart- or you don’t.”
Should
Berto beat Ortiz, the pickings get even slimmer at welterweight. Beyond his
mandatory Selcuk Aydin, there is Mike Jones, an agingRandall Bailey (who recently moved to welterweight),Kermit Cintron (who is willing to come down in weight
for the fight), WBA co-titleholders Vyacheslav Senchenko and Souleymane M’Baye,
IBF titleholder Jan Zaveck and not much else. That’s below or equal to Berto in
the rankings. Above that is a double holy grail inManny Pacquiaoand Floyd Mayweather. Being fellow “Haymonites,”
Mayweather and Berto will never fight. To lure Manny Pacquiao, Berto has to A)
show weakness and B) bring something to table, i.e. ticket sales, PPV numbers,
and/or public interest besides those 900 screaming fans. In short, to get that
ball rolling, Berto has to look spectacular here because the only way to get to
Manny is to win the respect of the crowd, which will in turn fill the empty
seats that plague him.
In
the end, though, as Berto says, talk is cheap. Actions will speak for
themselves and the rest will take care of itself.
“My
big fight isApril 16thon HBO. I’m fighting a young, hungry
lion. I’ve been calling these guys [Mayweather and Pacquiao] out. Been there,
done that. I can’t keep yelling out their names after each fight. Same [frustrating]
thing [applies] with[Nonito] Donaireand
[Sergio] Martinez. Who do you want to fight, Mayweather or Pacquiao? I’ll keep
dominating the guys in front of me. All the barking, as you see, really doesn’t
get the business done. If they want to fight you, they’ll fight you.”.
You can email Gabriel at maxgmontoya@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/gabriel_montoya and catch him on each Monday’s episode of “The Next Round” with Steve Kim or tune into hear him live on Thursdays at 5-8 PM PST when he co-hosts the BlogTalk radio show Leave-It-In-The-Ring.com. Gabriel is a full member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. * Special Thanks
ToMaxBoxing.
