When WBC welterweight (147 pounds) champion Andre Berto of Winterhaven, Fla., makes the fifth defense of his crown against Mexico City's Freddy Hernandez on an HBO televised, Nov. 27 card at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the 27-year-old fighter will do so with the purpose of taking his status into the next stratosphere.
With Berto-Hernandez taking place as part of an HBO televised triple-header promoted by Golden Boy Promotions whose main event will feature WBO and WBA lightweight (135 pounds) titlist Juan Manuel Marquez (51-5-1, 37 knockouts) of Mexico opposite WBO interim king Michael Katsidis (27-2, 22 KOs) of Australia, the unbeaten titlist is looking to steal the show.
With WBA super bantamweight (122 pounds) king Celestino Caballero (34-2, 23 KOs) rising to super featherweight (130 pounds) against Jason Litzau (27-2, 21 KOs) also on the show, Berto (26-0, 20 KOs) aims to turn in a performance against Hernandez (29-1, 20 KOs) that will lure dream match ups such as those opposite WBA junior middleweight (154 pounds) king Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KOs), former welterweight and junior middleweight world champion Shane Mosley (46-6-1, 39 KOs), rising Philadelphia prospect Mike Jones (22-0, 18 KOs), and, WBO junior welterweight (140 pounds) king Tim Bradley (26-0, 11 KOs) or WBO welterweight belt-holder Manny Pacquiao (51-3-2, 38 KOs)But first, Berto will have to take down the 31-year-old Hernandez, who has won 12 straight, six by knockout, since losing a split-decision to Golden Johnson in February of 2005.
Berto is coming off of April's career-defining, eighth-round knockout of Puerto Rican southpaw and former world champion Carlos Quintana, the only man to have ever beaten former three-time titlist Paul Williams (39-1, 27 KOs).
FanHouse: What are your reflections off of your last fight with Carlos Quintana and perhaps where it should have taken your career?
Andre Berto: You know, my last fight with Quintana, you know, it was a pretty exciting fight. You know I went in there with a lot of emotions and a lot of things on my mind dealing with the Haitian disaster and everything. There was a lot of different things going on.
There were a lot of things that had happened in my life, personally. I went in there and tried to handle my business pretty quickly. I didn't want to go in there and stay in there and wait for very long. I ended up tearing my bicep in the second round and that gave me a little bit more motivation to get out of there early.
When you completed the knockout, and you looked at the crowd, and you stepped out of that ring, did you feel as though you had completed a career-defining victory?
You know, I believe that the performance was okay. I came off of about a one year layoff. I was getting in there and I was fighting a crafty veteran in Quintana who had beaten Paul Williams.
Quintana had also given Miguel Cotto a helluva fight. But even with all of that, I don't feel as though it was my best performance at all.
What are your dream fights?
If it could all be worked out, and I'm telling you this because I know that people are always reading about these sort of things on blogs and this and that. They say that I don't want to fight this person or that person, and that I don't want to face the big name guys.
But I'm letting you know now that if it was all up to me, after Freddy Hernandez, if I could line things up for next year then it would be Shane Mosley, Miguel Cotto and then Manny Pacquiao. If I could get all three of them next year, you know, that would be my route that I would want to go in.
Then, I think that with that, I would be able to be satisfied. That would definitely satisfy myself and that would definitely show where I'm at.
Are you at all frustrated by the fact that you still are not in a major fight with a big name opponent coming off of the win over Carlos Quintana?
I think that coming into the fight game in general that I've always had a lot of great expectations. I don't think that is going to change any time soon, even after I've gone in there and stopped a guy like Carlos Quintana. I think that the critics are still going to speak.
I don't think that they're going to be satisfied until I actually get a chance to go in there and I have an opportunity to go in there and to dominate one of these top opponents. I mean, that's what any young fighter who is in my position would feel great about.
I mean, moving at the pace that I've been moving at, just to have the opportunity to have had the chance to have a career-defining fight against Carlos Quintana. I understand, because I know how the fight game is, that people are hungry for the best to be fighting the best.
I feel that I'm a good young kid, so they want to automatically throw me in there to fight the best. This is how it goes. My expectations are still going to continue to grow and they're not going to be satisfied.
Until I can go in there and continue to stop guys that people don't think that I can stop, then they'll continue to criticize. But that's just the position that I'm in. Realistically, though, I can't be made about that. I think that in the end that it means that I've been doing something right.
What sort of victory do you feel that you need against Freddy Hernandez?
At the end of the day, realistically, the only thing that counts is a victory. Freddy Hernandez has been achieving for his whole career. At the end of the day, the win is all that counts. But my mentality has definitely changed so that I'm a crowd-pleaser.
A lot of fighters don't care about the crowd situation and they just want to get a win. But I'm going to be myself and I believe that's really just going in there and not really looking to go the distance at all.
I'm looking forward to going in there and putting the heat on anybody that I'm in there with. I just want to continue to try to make that noise. There is not a lot of reward on the line against Freddy Hernandez, you know. I don't really stand to gain too much from this win.
But then again, I have a lot of things to prove. So I have to train really hard because these are the types of fights that make me train a little bit harder because there are a lot of higher expectations of me for this type of a fight. Everybody is expecting me to sort of go in there and to blow this kid out of the water.
Then, again, I know that this kid wants a world title, so this is his chance to build his name by knocking me off. So, those are the things that I think about. I don't change anything. This is training like I'm going to fight a Shane Mosley or a Miguel Cotto, so I'm looking forward to going in there and going to work.
I've never seen Freddy Hernandez fight, but I know the basics and what to look for. I know that my speed is going to play a big part, and I've been in camp for about three weeks working on that. I wanted to get in here early and get sharp early and things are coming together fairly quickly.
It's going to be me being a little more aggressive. I'm going to go in there and try to handle my business.
Source: boxing.fanhouse.com
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