Andre Berto to fight Cornelius Bundrage on November 24th

By ESB - 09/14/2012 - Comments

By Michael Collins: Andre Berto (28-1, 22 KO’s) will reportedly be making a move up in weight in his next fight on November 24th against IBF junior middleweight champion Cornelius Bundrage (32-4, 19 KO’s). There’s no question that this is a risky fight for both Bundrage and Berto. However, this could be a more tougher fight for Berto being that he hasn’t fought and entire year since last September. He’ll be facing a big puncher in Bundrage whole coming off of a long layoff.

Berto has the speed to give Bundrage problems if he can get him out of there early. Bundrage can be hurt as we saw in his stoppage losses to Joel Julio and Sechew Powell. However, it’s been a long time since Bundrage was stopped, and Berto should see this as a signal that he might have to look for a decision win. In that case, Berto needs to pace himself so that he doesn’t run out of gas like he did in his loss to Ortiz last year in April.

Ortiz wore Berto down and by the second of the fight he was able to dominate a tiring Berto. In his last fight, Berto defeated IBF welterweight champion Jan Zaveck by a 5th round stoppage victory in September 2011. It was a good win for Berto, but he looked like he was starting to run out of gas in the 4th round and it would have been interesting to see if Berto would have faded in the second half of the fight.

Bundrage is coming off a 7th round TKO win over Cory Spinks last June. This was the second time that the hard hitting Bundrage had easily beaten Spinks.

Berto was supposed to have been fighting Victor Ortiz in a rematch, but Berto tested positive for a banned substance which wiped out the fight. It was later learned that the positive test results were due to Berto eating some contaminated health products.

Berto has a good chance of beating Bundrage if he can get to him early before he’s had the opportunity to land some of his hard shots. If Bundrage is able to get into the second half of the fight he could possibly get a stoppage win over Berto.