Andre Berto hints that inside info will help him handle Floyd Mayweather
LAS VEGAS – Andre Berto is about six-and-a-half years younger than Floyd Mayweather Jr., whom he’ll face for the WBA and WBC welterweight titles on Saturday in a pay-per-view bout at the MGM Grand Garden.
Yet, they’ve frequently run in the same circles and know many of the same people. That’s a significant part of this story that is bubbling beneath the surface and has yet to be fully told.
Berto’s trainer, Virgil Hunter, alluded to the relationship in public comments at Wednesday’s final news conference. Berto said he felt Mayweather befriended him back when Berto was an amateur in part as a way to keep them from fighting each other.
Berto spoke of his lengthy association with Mayweather and said somewhat cryptically that he had relationships with some of Mayweather’s girlfriends.
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“Even when I was an amateur, it wasn’t in my mindset to look up to or idolize him,” Berto said of Mayweather. “In my mind, I was always thinking like, ‘Yeah, man. I’m coming in about a year.’ That was always my mindset. Everybody else outside my weight class, we were cool and I was good with them. But him?
“I’ve always known in my mind that we could be cool, and he could be buddy-buddy with me all he wanted, but in about a year, I knew I’d be coming for his ass. It’s not that I would idolize him, you know what I’m saying? Idolize him for what?”
Berto is a 30-1 underdog, incredibly. At the MGM Grand sports book on Friday, Mayweather is a minus-3000 favorite, while Berto is a plus-1000 underdog.
No one is giving him much of a chance. But this undercurrent of familiarity that Berto alluded to will have an impact upon the fight, Hunter said.
“Lot of you guys don’t understand what we understand, that when you have two guys that were born in situations, in hood situations, who’s the king of the school?” Hunter said. “Who’s the second king? ... It’s definitely something you guys don’t understand. When you get, and I’m just going to say it, two brothers together, you’re going to see a fight, a real fight. Think of Joe Frazier and [Muhammad] Ali in the ‘Thrilla in Manila’ when they thought Joe was done. Even Ali thought he was done, but what did we get? An epic heavyweight fight.
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“They thought Joe was done, but he fought over his head. Does Andre Berto have the capability of fighting over his head? … There are nights they just play over their heads. Andre Berto is going to have to take it over his head.”
Hill referred to it as a “hood fight” several times, even though Mayweather’s fights typically are the furthest things from wild scraps.
Berto said he’s not troubled by the scant attention he’s received or the disrespect he’s felt. He’s happy with his career, even though he admits he didn’t always train as hard as he should have at times.
He said he remembers seeing Mayweather and hip-hop star Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson ringside for his fight with Victor Ortiz in 2011 and thinking to himself, “Damn. I wish I had trained.”
He lost what was one of the year’s best fights, and Ortiz got the chance to fight Mayweather instead of him.
But even though he’s had a series of ups and downs, including a shoulder injury that was severe enough that it could have ended his career, Berto never lost faith that he’d see Mayweather in the ring one day.
Mayweather, he said, spoke of him so often it was almost as if he’d gotten into Mayweather’s head.
“He’s always kept my name in his mouth for some reason,” Berto said. “For some reason, it’s like he idolizes me for some reason. I don’t get it. He always got my name in his mouth. We know a lot of the same mutual people. We know a lot of the same mutual females. There is a lot of crossways, man. There are a lot of things that cross. I’m not one of these boring boxers who fights and goes home and sits up with their wife and kids trying to figure it out.
“I’m out there having a good time. I’m an all-right looking guy, too. I got a personality. I don’t need $100 million to have any of your women walk outside of that house and come see me when they get tired of all that money talk. All that lame, boring, tiresome money talk. Everybody got money. That gets tired, too, talking about it. I have a lot more to me. I’ve got a lot more personality, a lot more swag than you.”
Berto said he believes Mayweather had people prank call him and said Mayweather is a vastly different man than he portrays himself to be.
Berto said because he knows Mayweather so well that will make it a less intimidating, daunting task to fight him.
“This way he portrays himself is cool, but the guy I know personally and the guy all the people inside his house who know him, that lay down with him and this and that, he’s a completely different dude,” Berto said. “Like I said, he’s selling a character and good for him. I’m having a good time.”
He grinned slyly as he was pressed for more details. He clearly wants to perpetuate the notion that he knows something that few others know, and that it could lead to one of the most improbable upsets in boxing history.
Some of the biggest stars in boxing history have lost in shocking fashion. Mike Tyson was knocked out by Buster Douglas as a 42-1 favorite, and then was stopped by Evander Holyfield six years later as a 25-1 favorite. An aging Ali lost to Leon Spinks in Spinks’ eighth pro fight.
It’s happened. And Berto was low-key but insistent that it could happen again.
“Man, I wouldn’t have even shown up if I listened to y’all,” Berto said. “You said I don’t deserve it. I don’t have a chance, all that kind of [expletive]. That’s fine. That’s fine. I’ll be there and we’ll see how things go.”
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