Mayweather vs.
Berto
Tomorrow night is potentially Floyd Mayweather’s last
professional fight. Mayweather is facing
Andre Berto, a younger but significantly less decorated fighter (although a
2-time champion in his own right). For
this article I am being joined by my older brother Ankur, a boxing aficionado
like myself. I will be discussing what
Floyd needs to do to win on Saturday while Ankur will look at the keys to
victory for Andre Berto.
Tale of the Tape
Why Floyd Will Win
Nearly everyone ridiculed this fight when it was announced
as Floyd is widely considered to be the undisputed best of his generation
whereas Berto, once considered a hot prospect, has lost 3 of his last 6
fights. His most recent fight against
Josesito Lopez in March was a victory, but was not the most impressive
outing. Berto started excruciatingly
slow, practically only throwing jabs for the first three rounds and not using
his superior speed to throw combinations. Once Berto started to throw more, it was a completely different fight, eventually ending in a 6th round KO for Berto.
Mayweather on the other hand is coming off the biggest fight
of his career against Manny Pacquiao.
Mayweather controlled the entire fight in a masterful manner. He controlled distance beautifully, skated
around the ring, and counterpunched extremely well. Although the Pacquiao fight was the biggest
fight of Mayweather’s career, a more challenging and recent fight was against
Marcos Maidana. Maidana’s success came
in constantly walking Mayweather down and making the fight as rough as
possible.
In assessing this fight, it is clear that Berto will not be
able to replicate Maidana’s strategy. Berto
is a slick fighter that attempts, and usually succeeds, in out-boxing his
opponent. And that’s where the problem
lies: out boxing Floyd is unlikely, and for a fighter of Berto’s caliber,
almost guaranteed to be impossible.
Nevertheless, this is boxing, and crazier things have
happened. So let’s look at what Floyd
needs to do to come out of this with his 49th win:
- Keep Berto on the outside. Floyd
has the reach and height advantage for this fight on Saturday. If Floyd controls distance as well as he
usually does he will cruise to another unanimous decision.
- Keep fighting Floyd’s fight. One of the most amazing things about
Floyd Mayweather is how effectively he is able to impose his will and
style on a fight. Money is able to
slow down the pace of the fight and turn it into a boxing clinic, where he
is assured to dominate. Berto does
not seem to have a style that would put Mayweather in a difficult
situation in any event, but even if he throws out something new, if Floyd
fights his fight as he usually does, it will be hard for Berto to find
Mayweather.
I don’t want to say this is a bad fight, because in all
honesty, it isn’t. Berto is a dangerous
fighter. But unfortunately, styles make
fights, and the style that seems to be more effective against Floyd is a style
that Berto does not bring when he walks into the ring. However, Berto has speed, and like in most
sports, speed kills. It has
been a long time since Floyd has been in there with someone that quick, and it
will be interesting to see if Berto will be able to use that speed in
combinations to land on Floyd.
Why Berto Will Win
I know what you are thinking -- "he won't." And that's definitely how Vegas views this
fight. But this is boxing and one punch
can really change everything. And this
would not even be the biggest upset in the history of the sport (looking at you
Douglas/Tyson and Pacman/De La Hoya). To
be honest, I am shocked that no one
is giving Berto a shot. Shane Mosley
came out and said that the reason Mayweather picked this fight is because he
wanted to show that he could still KO someone.
That’s hyperbolic, especially as Mayweather, with his fragile hands,
probably couldn't knock anyone out in his weight class.
Berto is unlike any fighter that Mayweather has fought in
recent memory, i.e. he is fast and he is young. If you look at May's
recent fights, it's pretty clear that he fought guys who were much too slow to
beat him (V. Ortiz, Guerrero, Alvarez) or simply over the hill (Pacman, Cotto
[at 147], Mosley). That resulted in
slower guys trying to catch the greatest defensive fighter of our generation,
an unlikely proposal. Berto doesn't
suffer from that obvious disadvantage.
The Ortiz fight is a good example -- Berto is fast, has power, and even
though his chin is suspect, Mayweather just doesn't have the pop to test it.
Berto's best chance at winning this fight is to combine what
Cotto and Judah were able to do in their fights against Money. Cotto displayed the blueprint on how to cut
off the ring against Money and Judah
was able to utilize his power and speed in the early rounds. Here is the blueprint that Berto must employ
if he is going to make this fight interesting:
- Keep his punch volume high. Money's greatness rests on his defensive
wizardry, which forces the opponent (save for Maidana I and II) to limit
his punches because he misses and gets countered. But
Maidana, the one guy who didn't stop punching, is the only guy who got
close to the upset. Berto must keep his punch volume high.
- Punch when Mayweather punches.
- Take chances early. If this becomes a boxing match, Berto
will not win the fight (he probably will not win a round). He needs to be willing to get touched in
order to land his punches and he has to make sure to throw a lot of them. You can't outbox Mayweather, but you can
outwork him. Berto also needs to
start early. Once Mayweather gets a
feel for you, the fight is over.
If Berto executes and gets lucky by hurting Mayweather, we
will have an interesting title fight. If
he can't touch up the aging champ early
on, expect a classic boxing clinic from the best fighter of our
generation. Regardless, this is a fight
worth watching not only because it may be Mayweather’s swan song, and love him
or hate him, he is the best our generation has seen, but also because Berto,
unlike many of Mayweather's opponents, is not at the clear speed disadvantage.
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