Round by Round: Weekly Boxing Notes

The Haitian Sensation↵↵The fight of the weekend features one of the most exciting young fighters in boxing today, Haitian-born Andre Berto. Berto, who faces Juan Urango tomorrow night in Hollywood, Florida, is the current WBC champion at 147 pounds, which is the kind of honor that used to mean something in this world, and now, given the multitude of alphabet title floating around out there, doesn’t count for bupkiss.↵

↵↵It counts for even less when your welterweight colleagues are the biggest names in the sport bar none. If this is, as often has been noted, a very dry era for heavyweights, it is a glorious period for 147’s. Floyd Mayweather? Check. Miguel Cotto? Double check. Shane Mosley? Check, check and check. ↵

↵↵Then there is the matter of a certain Filipino sensation who does his work at any weight from featherweight to welter. You add the specter of Manny Pacquiao to those three names above, and throw in at least a passing nod to Juan Manuel Marquez, who is jumping from lightweight to a 144-pound catchweight to fight Mayweather on July 18, and also the once-great and now-disgraced bruiser, Antonio Margarito (whose future is admittedly uncertain), and it all adds up to a situation where welterweight title belts are about as meaningless as good intentions. ↵

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↵↵That leaves Berto fighting bouts like the one he faces Saturday night, against a strong and game Colombian who also happens to be a glorified junior welterweight without the most distinguished of resumes. Urango’s primary claim to fame is a loss to Ricky Hatton two years ago where Hatton, looking uninspired at best, still managed to dominate the fight by completely out-speeding and outworking his man. ↵

↵↵To my mind, if Urango lost the speed exchange with Hatton in 2007 at 140 pounds, then against Berto he is going to look like one of the slower tortoises racing one of the faster hares. Add to that the fact that, although Urango always has been a big 140, he’s been a 140 nevertheless, and you have a situation where the likelihood that he is going to be competitive against Berto at 147 is slim and none.↵

↵↵So what will a dominant victory over Juan Urango do for Andre Berto’s career? Very little. As an HBO headliner, it gets him back on the big stage at a propitious moment for welterweight matchmaking. But barring a Pacquiao-over-Hatton level knockout that is so spectacular that it goes viral on the web and creates a buzz around his name, Saturday night figures to be a biding-his-time bout for Andre Berto. He finds himself in a similar place to that of Paul Williams -- seemingly too good and with too much star potential to be stuck in the morass of second and third-tier fights, and yet too dangerous and without the drawing power to command a fight with one of the division’s capos. ↵

↵↵Of course, Paul Williams, being the physical freak of nature that he is, has dealt with that problem by fighting as a junior middleweight and most recently as a middleweight, with talk of him even being willing to go so high as super middleweight. Berto doesn’t have those options. He’s as pure and natural a welterweight as you’re ever going to see, and moving up or down in weight stands to gain him nothing. No, there’s not much for Andre Berto to do but keep his name as much in the spotlight as he can with decisive victories and wait out the round-robin that is currently playing out among the welterweight elites. As far as that goes, Saturday night should be a solid but unspectacular exhibit of Berto’s ample talents.↵

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