Berto’s Battle for respect continues

Andre Berto has his proponents and detractors but believes all he has to do to earn respect is win.

The issue of whether an athlete is underrated or overrated is always a complicated one. As soon as a couple of people call you underrated, you aren’t anymore. Or if all of the critics label you overrated, it’s likely that criticism underrates you.

Whether someone is overrated or underrated isn’t just a matter of opinion; it’s a matter of opinion measured against an opinion about what everybody else’s opinion is. The potential for disagreement increases exponentially when you make the leap from “he’s good” or “he sucks” to “he’s overrated” or “he’s underrated.”

Therefore, it’s with very little conviction that I would suggest welterweight contender Andre Berto has become an underrated fighter. He seems to be getting just a touch less respect than is warranted. It’s not an outrageous sort of snub, by any means. There’s merely a slight, subtle sense that Berto isn’t quite receiving as much respect as he deserves.

You can understand why there would be some minor backlash against Berto. His promoter is former HBO executive Lou DiBella, and when a DiBella fighter gets repeated opportunities to fight on HBO, eyebrows are inevitably raised. Berto got plenty of exposure on HBO when he was still an unproven prospect, and not necessarily against opposition with a shot at winning. His fights with Miguel Figueroa, Nito Bravo, Michel Trabant and Miki Rodriguez all had predetermined outcomes. So there are some who are slow to accept Berto as anything other than a hype job with connections.

Also, against Rodriguez, he won a vacant alphabet strap that served to illustrate just how undemanding the road to a “championship” has become in this day and age. It’s like the Cleveland Cavaliers declaring themselves world champions because they blew through Detroit and Atlanta; as LeBron and company are currently being reminded, there’s still work to be done. With Berto, there was a measure of resentment in some corners because he’d won his first title the easy way.

On top of that, the 2004 Olympian has had a couple of serious scares in the last two years. He got dropped by a sizzling uppercut in the sixth round against Cosme Rivera in 2007, and his most recent fight, a unanimous decision over Luis Collazo, was a nailbiter that legitimately could have gone either way. On the one hand, Berto showed heart and resilience in both victories. But to his detractors, he looked like a fighter for whom the very top of the division is out of reach.

Berto is 24-0, with 19 knockouts, is only 25 years old, and has only been a pro for 4½
years. Plus he has generally been increasing the level of opposition as he’s moved along. What more can you realistically ask for?

“I think boxing critics are probably the toughest critics out there,” Berto told RingTV.com. “I’m in the most prestigious division in boxing. It has a lot of guys who have been there for a while, future Hall of Famers. So it doesn’t bother me if people don’t rank me as high as Shane Mosley and Miguel Cotto and Floyd Mayweather and the guys at the very top yet. With boxing, it’s a game where you can turn into a superstar overnight. Remember, everybody pretty much turned their back on Shane Mosley until he put on a tremendous performance against (Antonio) Margarito.

“I understand that in order to be considered the best, you have to fight the best. And I just feel in due time, everything’s going to fall into place. I’m not in a crazy rush. People seem to forget that I’m just four or five years out of the Olympic Games, but I’m still mentioned with the names of the Mayweathers, the Cottos, the Mosleys. So I must be doing something right.”

One of Berto’s recent opponents, Steve Forbes, who dropped a unanimous decision to Berto last September, certainly feels the Floridian is doing something right.

“Remember, Collazo’s a good lefthander who’s given everybody problems, including Shane Mosley, and Collazo really beat Ricky Hatton, so I think Berto took unfair criticism for struggling in that fight. I think he’s a rising star,” Forbes said. “I give him a lot of respect because, against me, he showed the ability to adjust in the middle of the fight. I expected him to keep trying to go for a knockout because he had some spectacular knockouts on HBO. But he didn’t. He figured, ‘You know what, this guy’s a savvy veteran fighter and I need to just go into a boxing mode because a knockout’s not going to happen.’ He decided, ‘I’m going to score and that’s all that matters.’ That was a smart way to fight against me.”

The problem is that that approach to boxing isn’t the way to get the fans behind you. Berto had three straight knockouts coming into his fight with Forbes, and because Forbes (who’s never been KO’d in 12 years as a pro) and the extremely skillful Collazo both took him the distance, Berto’s momentum with the fans may has been slowed. It’s not exactly fair. But Berto gets it.

“At the end of the day I’m a boxing fan, and I’m getting a little itchy about it too, the last couple of fights going the distance,” he said. “I want to get back on my stoppage spree. Hardcore boxing fans, they want to see excitement, they want to see knockouts, they want to see someone get knocked unconscious. That’s just the name of the game. Hopefully I can get back to that this Saturday.”

Berto is referring to his fight against Juan Urango this weekend in Hollywood, Fla., on HBO. It’s a fascinating matchup with regard to what it can do for Berto’s respect quotient.

Urango is arguably the ultimate made-to-order opponent. He’s a relatively predictable puncher, but the threat of his punching power is diminished because he’s a junior welterweight moving up seven pounds for the opportunity. He’s an action fighter who won’t bore fans and won’t confuse opponents. Urango looks like the kind of guy whom Berto can beat, and beat impressively.

And all of that might serve to work against Berto. After all, if he scores a devastating knockout of Urango, well, whoop-dee-doo, he flattened a little guy.

“I think that’s exactly what will be said,” Forbes said. “But as long as you win, everything will come when it’s supposed to. The most important thing for him is to win, second most important is to look good winning, and that’s all that you can control.”

Berto has the exact same attitude about himself as Forbes has about him.

“At the end of the day, as long as I keep racking up wins, that’s what counts,” he said. “Urango, he’s a smaller guy, but at the same time he’s a huge guy to be at 140 pounds and he’s an extremely strong puncher. So I’m not looking forward to him being an easy fight. I’m looking forward to a tough fight, I’m prepared for a tough fight, and as long as I come out with a victory, that’s the only thing that matters.”

True enough. If Berto defeats Urango, he remains among the top five or so welterweights. But what he really wants, ideally soon, is a breakout fight against one of the division’s resident superstars. And to get one of those fighters into the ring with him, he needs to create the impression among the boxing public that he is on the same level as they are. If the public believes Mosley vs. Berto or Mayweather vs. Berto is a toss-up fight, then that makes it a fight worth serious money to all parties.

So Berto needs to keep winning and do so in a way that makes it tough to underrate him.

If he does that and earns a fight against the 147-pound elite, that’s when we’ll find out once and for all whether he’s actually overrated, underrated or rated correctly.

RASKIN’S RANTS

• I was all set to criticize Guillermo Rigondeaux for aging badly between his Olympic gold medal performances and his pro debut … and then Friday Night Fights went and showed us Cheryl Tiegs at ringside. Everything’s relative, I suppose.

• Seriously, with regard to Rigondeaux, if you never saw him in the amateurs, do yourself a favor and track down some footage. He may go on to have a decent pro career, but I suspect old videos are the only way we’ll ever see him at the height of his powers again.

• Thank goodness the WBC came up with a title to award to Vernon Forrest. I was really concerned about how Vernon was going to pay the bills, but now I can sleep easy knowing he’s the WBC Ambassador of Peace and Good Will in the World Through Sports.

• Random rhetorical question: Has any modern boxer been in more fights in which both guys hit the canvas than Jhonny Gonzalez?