Being a part of something successful can be great but being there for the whole ride is much more memorable. While the sport of boxing is littered with stories of triumph sometimes when we take a closer look at the people surrounding the storied pugilists we often get a better perspective of the situation.
Sporting a 25-0 record with 19 knockouts, WBC Welterweight champion Andre Berto has had much to rejoice upon in recent years. An upcoming January 30th showdown with living legend Shane Mosley will give Berto a chance to take his star status to an even higher level but one man who will never forget the early days of the Haitian-American is Lou Dibella Entertainment’s matchmaker Joe Quiambao.
A former Golden Gloves champion himself, Quiambao has always been in love with the sport of boxing and an internship at under Dibella ended up being the perfect fit for the Brooklyn native. With much hard work and fortitude Quiambao would end up going from an intern to the role of a matchmaker and he has helped guide young Berto’s career as far back as his third professional fight.
Combining fast hands, adequate power, and a fan-friendly style, Berto has placed himself as a fighter with much promise but Quiamboa will be the first to tell you that Andre’s achievements didn’t come without much time and seasoning. From a budding prospect with youthful exuberance to a legitimate champion in the most cutthroat of sports, it has been a time worth remembering for both fighter and matchmaker.
Still, there are some who are quick to question Berto due to a lack of belief in his abilities as well as him not having faced a myriad of world class competition up to this point. Quiambao knows very well that a Mosley showdown will be the chance for Berto to dispel those notions. Speaking recently Quiambao opened up about the matchup between the two Welterweight champions as well as his early time getting to know Berto and the satisfaction he has taken from seeing him succeed. In his own words, this is what Quiambao remembers best…
Hearing about Andre… “I actually heard about him a year before the Olympics and I made a point to check him out. He actually ended up calling the office to keep in touch and we would small talk about boxing. When he was training for the Olympics I was giving him running drills and conditioning tips to improve his stamina because I was a certified personal trainer. So I knew him pretty well even before he became a professional. But he always kept in touch just to say hi and he was always in touch with the office in one way or another. He talked to everybody in the office, not just me and Lou, and everyone really got to know him in the office.”
Berto signing with Dibella Entertainment… “I remember he would always tell me about all of the other companies that were courting him. I knew that he wanted to go with us but he just wanted to make sure that he was making the right decision by looking. It’s kind of like when you are buying a house and you already know which one you are going to buy but you just want to eliminate everything else by being sure and checking. He already had a relationship with us and that’s why I think he chose us.”
Matchmaking Berto’s early career… “It was easy for me because the kid could fight and he would fight anybody unlike other fighters I knew. What I got to notice about him early was that he had fast hands and that he could punch. The bad thing about it is that his opponents knew that already also. The thing was for me to try to match him up and find somebody who could extend him and give him rounds. I knew that if he was knocking these guys out in one round that it wouldn’t do anybody any good. I mean it looks nice but you don’t grow as a fighter. I was trying to get him the right opponents coming up as far as different styles were concerned. I tried to give him some guys who could move, some guys who could come right at him, and actually if you look at his career he fought a lot of southpaws. I did that specifically because I knew he would have to fought southpaws later in his career anyways, like Louis Collazo and Juan Urango. There are some matchmakers who try to sway their fighters away from southpaws but I don’t agree with that.”
From scratch… “His trainer Tony Morgan has done a great job with him just working with him in the gym and teaching him. He’s actually had Andre from scratch, that’s one of the few times you will see an amateur coach take a fighter through the pros and take him all the way to a championship. Generally when a fighter turns pro they get a whole new team and leave their amateur coach in the dust. The thing I noticed about Andre over time was that he got more mature, more confident, and more seasoned from just being in the ring with different styles. Cosme Rivera lulled him to sleep and knocked him down while a guy like David Estrada came right at him to fight. When Andre first turned pro all he did for his defense was put his hands up in front of his face and just start teeing off. Now you can see he has a little more of a cross arm defense where he knows how to shift his shoulders and his elbows. He’s able to counter off of it as well.”
Berto defeating Miki Rodriguez to win the WBC championship of the world… “It felt great because he was my first world champion. He made my job easy because you have to have the horse to win the race and he was a good fighter already. From like his second or third pro fight I was in charge of matching him up and I was in charge of finding his early fights when he was a four, six, and eight round fighter. Then he became more recognized and that’s where we all had to sit down and figure out who he would be fighting, whether it was him and his coach or Al Haymon and Lou, we all ending up getting together and coming to an agreement on an opponent. Form there it was all a team effort and I can’t take the credit myself. Mike Marchionte also deserves credit for putting together his first two fights.”
Remembering Berto’s brawl with Louis Collazo… “Watching that fight was very hard because I grew up with Louie. When I was leaving the amateurs he was coming in. I remember I heard about Louie and that he was a tough southpaw from Coney Island. When I got to see him fight I knew that he was going to be a really good fighter. Matter of fact in the Golden Gloves finals he beat Yuri Foreman, who went on to become a future champion. It was hard to watch because I grew up and bumped heads with those guys ever since I was a fifteen, sixteen year old kid. At the end of the day my loyalty was with Lou Dibella and Team Berto so you know where I had to side on that one. The thing is that Louie Collazo is a class act and he didn’t hold anything against me before or after the fighter. I saw him at a local boxing show before the fight and him and his trainer just kind of shook their heads and laughed while still giving me a hug. They are class acts, those guys.”
Overcoming the butterflies… “I knew that Andre was nervous in the beginning because I went in the dressing room and he had a few butterflies. I think it was the first fight where he felt like for the first time that the guy in front of him had some kind of chance of really doing something to him. He knew that Collazo was the type of fighter who believed he could win and the type of guy who could really push him. I could see it in his face. The best thing that could have happened in that fight was when Louie hit him with that straight left hand. It woke him up and seconds later he came back with his own shot to hurt Louie and from there it was back and forth. Louie was the busier fighter but Berto was the harder puncher. It was a close fight but Berto finished the fight big and he picked it up when he had to. He finished like a champion and whatever he had in his body he left it there after twelve rounds. He was exhausted and that’s the way a champion is supposed to finish. From there he became a man.”
Assessing Berto’s January 30th clash with Shane Mosley… “I think a lot of people who look at Berto are taken back because they say he has fought easy guys on his way towards the world title. Plus when you throw in the fact that the win with Collazo was controversial because people were split on that fight, not everyone is sold. People are still questioning his abilities and status as a world class fighter. I think this fight will show everybody that he is a world class fighter. It’s a great fight because you have an older guy with experience, speed, and pop against a younger guy with speed and pop. I remember when Andre stopped Taronze Washington on the undercard of the Hopkins-Taylor fight Mosley was there and he was giving Andre a lot of props. Now they are fighting and it’s kind of ironic. I know before that they had a good relationship but now they have to put their game faces on.”
