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Andre Berto vs Martinus Clay summary plus ronald hearns fight summary.

1298 Views 17 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  TysonJones
Andre Berto has developed a reputation as the sport's most highly touted prospect. So it was only fitting that the 2004 Olympian stole the show in the non-televised portion of the undercard. Berto was nearly flawless in forcing trialhorse Martinus Clay into submission in the seventh round of their scheduled ten.

Berto's combination of speed and power had the crowd on hand oohing and ahhing nearly every time he let his hands go. Clay seemed to be in awe of Berto's superior skill level, as he spent much of the bout in survival mode.

Though only eighteen fights into his pro career, Berto proved himself to be a true student of the game, never pardoning the body while looking to wear his opponent down. While Clay was covering up in anticipation of Berto's right hands, Andre began gauging his left hook downstairs.

As effective as he was to the body, it was a left hook to the chin that permanently altered the tone of the fight. A crisp, compact shot insde put Clay on his seat early into the sixth round, the bout's lone knockdown. Berto sensed blood and went in for the kill, but Clay was able to use some veteran tricks to survive what had to be the longest two minutes of his fighting life.

Controversy ensued in between rounds, with miscommunication between the ringside physician and referee Clay Huddleston indirectly leading to Clay's demise. With the physician giving Clay a thorough look in between rounds, Clay was supposed to be allotted a full minute rest in between rounds in addition to the examination. Instead, time was never called, and the bell rang to begin round seven while Clay's corner was never given time to brief their fighter.

Nothing notable happened in round seven, but Clay's corner, still furious with the officials, decided their guy wasn't in condition to continue. The towel came in, ending the fight 0:43 into the seventh round.

Berto improves to 18-0 (16KO) with the win, scoring his 14th straight stoppage in the process. Clay is now winless in his last four bouts, but can take comfort in the fact that he extended Berto further than the Olympian has ever been as a pro to date. But moral victories in boxing still count as losses, this one being number 15 for Clay, against 12 wins and two draws.

The greater challenge was coordinating a post-fight meeting between Berto and the press. After being ushered to his locker room for a post-fight drug test, the always approachable Berto agreed to meet with the media. But lack of coordination on the part of HBO prevented such meeting from taking place, with a portion of the press held captive while the HBO camera setup process led to 20 minutes of dead space in an arena in desperate need of resuscitation.

In a night where famous boxing kinship was on full display, undefeated Ronald Hearns (14-0, 11KO) pounded out an eight-round shutout over tough but limited Dennis Sharpe (17-5, 4KO). Official scores were 80-72 across the board.

Hearns dominated all night with jabs and straight rights, though Sharpe was never on the verge of going down. Hearns enjoyed immediate success every time he went downstairs, but didn't commit to the body enough to threaten with a stoppage. Sharpe has now dropped five straight, though can proudly claim to have extended unbeaten middleweight prospects Andy Lee, Buddy McGirt Jr. and now Hearns the distance, and without fighting in survival mode.

Hearns' nine-fight knockout streak ends with the decision win, only the third time Motor City's next generation was denied an early exit.
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i thought berto looked worse than id ever seen him the other night, im not saying it was a bad performance but clay wasn't doing anything.

berto should realy have taken him out in 2-3 rounds.
he might of just wanted to get some rounds in. does this mean you saw the fight tommy? let me knwo when you get it recorded .
tysonjones said:
he might of just wanted to get some rounds in. does this mean you saw the fight tommy? let me knwo when you get it recorded .
yeah dude, i menmsioned it in the other thread. the fights are usualy replayed a week or so later so i'll get back to you then.

i gues i was just expecting another bravo like performance from, andre, no way it was a bad performance its just nothing was comming back from clay so i dont see what doing the extra rounds would have done for him.

i give him a B+ for the fight.
I still haven't seen this dammit.
This is the first chance i have had to see Berto, and i wasnt as impressed as i thought i would be. I think it was more due to the level of opponent, but there were a lot of flaws. His left hand was down by his waist. A good fighter would have caught him with a good right easily.

It was commentated on the broadcast here than a Mosley or Cotto would really trouble Berto right now, and i really agree. I think hes a good talent, and maybe it wasnt his best display, but i think theres 2-3 more fights against better opposition before he can think about going for a world title.

And also, i think the ref was an idiot. He seemed to force Clay to come out to fight, it seemed obvious both Clay and his corner wanted no more of the fight.

I do think Berto has fantastic power and decent speed, but i think he is beginning to pick up bad habits from his krappy opponents.. he needs to step it up and fight some better guys.
LeedsLad said:
This is the first chance i have had to see Berto, and i wasnt as impressed as i thought i would be. I think it was more due to the level of opponent, but there were a lot of flaws. His left hand was down by his waist. A good fighter would have caught him with a good right easily.

It was commentated on the broadcast here than a Mosley or Cotto would really trouble Berto right now, and i really agree. I think hes a good talent, and maybe it wasnt his best display, but i think theres 2-3 more fights against better opposition before he can think about going for a world title.

And also, i think the ref was an idiot. He seemed to force Clay to come out to fight, it seemed obvious both Clay and his corner wanted no more of the fight.

I do think Berto has fantastic power and decent speed, but i think he is beginning to pick up bad habits from his krappy opponents.. he needs to step it up and fight some better guys.
thats pretty much what i thought about berto on sat night, to be fair to the kid though he's looked briliant when ive seen him in the past, i think thats his 4th fight in a row ive seen now.

good but could do better.

your right about the ref LL, clays heart wasn't in comming out for that last round, the ref could have stopped him embarasing himself when he quit, the guy was clearly out matched.

berto v joel julio could be a good fight next and that would tell us what we want to know about berto's chin.
alright, well hey , you cant expect him to look AAAAAA+ in all his performances. I havent seen the fight yet so i cant agree or disagree but ive heard clay was a journeyman but tough. As fast a berto is and as quick as his reflexes are, i dont see his Hand being low causing him much problems. ala jones, ali, and most great gifted boxers. Maybe since he wasnt on hbo, he didnt feel the urgency to put on a great performance who knows. cant wait to watch it htough.
LeedsLad said:
This is the first chance i have had to see Berto, and i wasnt as impressed as i thought i would be. I think it was more due to the level of opponent, but there were a lot of flaws. His left hand was down by his waist. A good fighter would have caught him with a good right easily.

It was commentated on the broadcast here than a Mosley or Cotto would really trouble Berto right now, and i really agree. I think hes a good talent, and maybe it wasnt his best display, but i think theres 2-3 more fights against better opposition before he can think about going for a world title.

And also, i think the ref was an idiot. He seemed to force Clay to come out to fight, it seemed obvious both Clay and his corner wanted no more of the fight.

I do think Berto has fantastic power and decent speed, but i think he is beginning to pick up bad habits from his krappy opponents.. he needs to step it up and fight some better guys.
I agree 100%. I keep saying he isn't ready for title shots yet but needs better competition.
he is ready, haha i dunno, hes very ready for top 10 comp. he'll be ready in a year.
Exactly. One year. Well I say this coming January.
january would be great so. I would love for berto to be the guy to destroy margarito, to bad williams gets to him first.
That would make my day, but people would say that Berto is just great and Margie was off or something. I'd rather see Williams whoop him.
williams will whoop him, hopefully. Berto in the next few years, will eventually annihilate them all though. The top guys better figure out what weight they want to stay at, becasue berto's coming, beware, 147 pounders, all thought i see berto as an easy 3 division champ in under 5 years.
Isnt the winner of Marg/Williams is fighting the winner of Zab/Cotto? Maybe Berto will be ready to take on whoever wins that then. Im not going to go nuts about Berto because i havent seen enough of him.

I thought he had real good power against Clay but for me seemed very arrogant and cocky, as if he was believing his own hype. That may have been because Clay didnt have the power to hurt him, Clay did catch him a few times but just didnt have enough zip to hurt him.

The opinion over here is that he has good power and good skills but hes starting to pick up bad habits, probably down the lack of quality of his opposition. He should step it up and start fighting some fringe world title guys IMO.
berto is just fighting who they put in front of him, all the champs right now are already signed to fighting other guys at the moment. Berto can easily get away with his bad habits, all the greats had those same habits.
I know there easily lost, but it takes time, which slows down his progress. For me he should be stepping it up with the opponents by now, obviously thats not a critisicm of him, more of DiBella (his promoter?).

Just as a quick example maybe he should fight Oktay Urkal or someone like that. Someone who is around the world title scene at WW, but not quite in the frame.
i'd like to see him fight quintana.
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