Andre Berto November bout confirmed
WBC welterweight champ Andre Berto will put the gloves on for a fifth defense of his title November 27, promoter Lou Dibella confirms.
The fight will feature Berto going up against Mexico City’s Freddy Hernandez at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It will be televised on HBO.
Berto and Hernandez will contribute to a triple-header that will culminate in WBO/WBA lightweight titlist Juan Manuel Marquez (51-5, 37 KOs) taking on WBO interim champ Michael Katsidis (27-2, 22 KOs)
later in the evening. The fight is promoted by Golden Boy Promotions.
A third bout, which will open the evening, will consist of WBA super bantamweight champ Celestino Caballero (34-2, 23 KOs) challenging NABF titlist Jason Litzau (27-2, 21 KOs) in his first featherweight
bout.
For weeks there was talk Berto (26-0, 20 KOs) would meet mandatory challenger Selcuk Aydin, but Aydin refuse to agree to terms for the bout in Las Vegas. As a result Hernandez was determined a new mandatory
challenger for Berto, who has been inactive since April.
Dibella said to Boxing Fanhouse, “We were scheduled to fight Aydin, the mandatory. But we couldn't make the deal to bring him over here and to fight the mandatory. There's not going to be any stripping
of the [WBC] title."
“Hernandez is a good fighter. "Obviously, it's not the kind of big fight that Andre was looking for, but that wasn't going to happen on an undercard."
Hernandez is riding the wave of a fifth round stoppage of former junior welterweight champ DeMarcus Corley. Corley recently went the distance in a close fight with WBA interim champ Marcos Maidana.
Berto beat former world champion Carlos Quintana in April in a one sided-bout.
"Our biggest desire and our focus right now is to beat Freddy Hernandez, which is not an easy task because Freddy Hernandez is a tough fighter," DiBella argued. "Andre Berto is and was and always has been
willing to fight anybody, and by beating Freddy Hernandez, he can focus on getting into the sort of fights that the public wants and needs."
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