He is not Manny Pacquiao. He is not Floyd Mayweather Jr. He couldn?t beat Victor Ortiz. He?s never faced Miguel Cotto, Antonio Margarito or Shane Mosley.
Andre Berto is not just maligned for who he isn?t and what he hasn?t done ? he is also derided for what he is and what he does.
He fights on HBO and has been spotlighted as a future star and preeminent talent. He has appeared on the network for each of his last 10 fights over these past four years. In total, he has been on an HBO undercard or main event on a dozen nights. He has been paid millions of dollars for doing so.
He is all of this despite what he isn?t ? a proven entity, a ticket seller, one of the best 147-pound fighters in the world.
Much of this is not his fault, and yet he is vilified, rooted against. He is a fighter who might just have more doubters than he has supporters.
They say he ain?t nothing, that he?s over-hyped, ripe to be exposed, a media creation.
They might be right.
This is his welterweight burden. He profits from the attention heaped upon him, the money spent marketing the latest protagonist in this pugilistic plotline. HBO has stars and champions and seeks those who will replace them, or at least challenge them, introducing characters into what is essentially episodic programming.
He was to be the heir apparent in a welterweight division of Pacquiao and Mayweather, of Cotto, Margarito and Mosley. He was flashy and marketable, a good-looking, fast-punching former Olympian.
When choosing heirs, it is best to err on the side of caution.
Michael Grant was not the heavyweight heir apparent. Jermain Taylor inherited the middleweight throne but was not fit to be king. Andre Berto might never progress beyond 147-pound beltholder to become the weight class?s true champion.
That doesn?t mean he doesn?t deserve attention. It does mean he doesn?t deserve the amount of attention he?s received.
He has accepted the spotlight and the seven-figure paychecks and must accept the criticism that comes with it, even if it is the network and the promoter that decide whether to air him and how much to pay him.
The large paychecks inflated Berto?s self-worth and made it more difficult to get him in the ring with another top welterweight and actually prove that he was worth the investment. While HBO enabled that, sometimes the competition for big fights and pay-per-view dates means a lack of, well, competition.
A year ago Berto said that Cotto, who had since gone up to the junior middleweight division, wasn?t interested. Berto?s promoter, Lou DiBella, told this scribe last year that a fight with Mosley couldn?t be made because of disagreements on the purse split, the location and even who would fight on the undercard (a Golden Boy Promotions spokeswoman never responded at the time to a request for comment). Berto and Mosley had been signed to fight in January 2010, back when Mosley was the division’s linear champion, but that fight got called off after the massive earthquake in Berto’s native country of Haiti.
Those fights could?ve opened the door for Berto to someday face Pacquiao; a clash with Mayweather seems less possible because the fighters share an adviser.
