Boxing is an interesting sport, because you truly don’t know what a prospect is made of until he starts having fights with other star prospects.
Andre Berto was seen as the future of boxing for a long time. Unfortunately, he fought against mostly bums for the majority of his early career.
When he step up the competition against Victor Ortiz and Robert Guerrero a lot of the flaws that were masked when he was fighting the bums started to surface.
The lack of defense, no head movement, not smart in the ring, hanging on the ropes and a suspect chin. Being a boxer is like being a quarterback, it helps to have athletic ability, but if you aren’t smart and you don’t have the intangibles you won’t go far.
Berto stepped into the ring desperate for a win on Showtime Knockout Kings 2 card in San Antonio (or San Diego if you are Keith Thurman). They put him in with a guy Jesus Soto-Karass who has a lot of heart, lot of guts, but frankly isn’t that skilled. Berto should have run right through Soto-Karass, but all the flaws that were clear in his last two losses showed up again.
Berto was hurt early and often, simply because he isn’t a very good fighter anymore. Berto hurt his shoulder in the 4th or 5th round, but that is no excuse for his lack of defense. Berto showed a lot of heart and made the fight close with a clean knockdown in the 11th round from a body shot (Soto-Karass said it was low blow, I didn’t see it that way), but in the end Berto’s lack of defense did him in.
Where does Berto go from here? Not sure, but it is obvious that he will never reach his potential or the elite status many thought he was destine for.
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I don’t know if there are enough adjectives to described what happened between Omar Figueroa and Nihito Arakawa in the ring on Saturday.
I don’t say this with any hint of sarcasm, but I was worried about Arakawa’s life during certain parts of the fight. Figueroa only knows one way to fight and that is to throw a million punches and hopes he catches you before you catch him. Normally, Figueroa catches his opponent early and that night is over, but that didn’t happen this time. Arakawa actually threw more punches than Figueroa.
Combine they threw 2,112 punches, which is insane.
Figueroa got the win and some valuable experience in the leading candidate for fight of the year.