THE last boxer to fight Floyd Mayweather has given his taken on Floyd’s first match-up with an MMA fighter, Conor McGregor. Andre Berto boxed Mayweather in 2015, in Floyd’s 49th fight, and lost a wide points decision over 12 rounds.
He’s not surprised to see Mayweather returning to the sport. “If there’s a record to break then he’s going to make sure to break it. I thought he’s going to come to fight. If he wins he beats Marciano’s record. He’ll definitely want to finish off 50-0 and break Marciano’s record and make a lot of money in the process,” Berto said.
He doesn’t think the break will affect Floyd either. “When he fought Marquez I believe he came off a two year lay-off. The guy is sharp. He’s stays in the gym. It won’t be different with McGregor. I believe he’ll be sharp going into that one too,” Andre said.
He doesn’t rate Conor McGregor’s chances against Floyd. “It’s a fight so anything can happen. I can’t say it’s crazy. All of us tried to catch him. All of us tried to catch him, we couldn’t catch him. We’re going to see if McGregor could make it happen,” Berto reflected. “For people to accept it in some way, they’re going to tune in regardless, Mayweather has to embarrass him boxing-wise to even get a little bit of credibility from the boxing world from that. But it’s the boxing game, anything can happen, Conor could come and land a crazy shot. If he does that he’s the president of the world.”
Berto wouldn’t be drawn on how McGregor would even fare fighting him, which in itself spoke volumes. “I’m not going to say too much, he’s a great fighter, a great MMA fighter but I think coming into boxing, he should just fight Floyd and get right back into MMA. I know he’s smarter than that. He won’t try to play with anything else,” Andre said.
But he added, “He’s in a no lose situation regardless. Everybody expects him to lose anyway. He’s going to leave and head back to MMA and take that s*** over and be a bigger star than he was before. Win-win. But don’t let him land a punch. If he lands a punch, a good shot and wobbles Mayweather, anything.”
Berto lost to Shawn Porter in March and isn’t rushing into his next fight. “I can’t say nothing about nothing right now. I’m chilling, relaxing. Right now I’m going to sit back and see what happens with these young guys. I’m looking forward to seeing how these young guys fight,” he said.
In the meantime he wants to see Errol Spence and Keith Thurman fight to unify the WBC, WBA and IBF welterweight titles. “I think that would be a great fight,” Berto said. “Errol Spence right now, he’s a young hungry lion, he wants to fight any and everybody. All of us were like that at that age. But at the same time Keith Thurman, young and hungry as well. Keith has the equaliser, he has that speed and that power. Errol Spence he hasn’t seen that before. Errol Spence, he’s technically on point and strong. He’s in shape like crazy too so it would be a tremendous fight.
“Believe it or not I’d probably lean to Thurman because he’s a great boxer and like I said he can box and he’s got power. Errol Spence when he fought Kell Brook, a tremendous performance but he got hit with some good shots and I just think if Keith Thurman hits him with those type of shots it’ll be a different type of reaction.”
