Andre Berto retained his WBC welterweight title belt tonight with an eighth round stoppage of Carlos Quintana in Florida, and Celestino Caballero dominated Daud Yordan in the co-feature of HBO's first World Championship Boxing card of 2010.

Berto (26-0, 20 KO) started a bit slow and complained frequently of rabbit punches in the early going, but eventually was able to use his speed and natural ability to overwhelm Quintana. Quintana (27-3, 21 KO) was game and tried to make the fight a bit ugly. But it was talent that won the night, and Berto's physical abilities were just too much for him to handle. Quintana, due to the complaining of the Berto corner (and a legitimate rabbit punch, to be fair), had a point taken, but it didn't wind up mattering.

Berto said he hurt his left bicep in the second or third round of the fight, but fought through it and landed a lot of good right hands along the way. In the eighth, he stunned and chased Quintana quickly, and then finished him off with a nasty right hand right down the pipe, forcing Tommy Kimmons to step in and call the fight off.

Quintana is a gatekeeper, but a high-level gatekeeper. He's a step above the David Estradas of the world. In the end, Berto was better and he showed it. We'll have more on Berto this week, as I think the time is right to start examining what we really have with Andre Berto. The hype has died down some and he's become Andre Berto: Welterweight Contender instead of Andre Berto: Prospect. The next step up for Berto is a HUGE jump, as the HBO team talked about, and what stinks for Berto is there aren't a whole lot of guys better than Quintana or Luis Collazo against whom Berto can get better than he is. That's not Andre's fault. He might have to essentially "tread water" for a few fights.

But we'll get back to that later this week.

On the undercard, Celestino Caballero dominated Daud Yordan and won a unanimous decision. But to hear HBO's Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant tell it, Yordan was on death's door and Caballero was the Grim Reaper. Look, Caballero dominated. I said that, I mean it -- he clearly and relatively easily won the fight. But this was not the massacre or slaughter they were describing. Caballero looked excellent, and is a clear danger to the featherweight division. When he's on his game, as he was tonight, he's a terribly tough proposition for anyone from John to Gamboa to Lopez to whoever else at 126.

We went on and on enough about the HBO team's call of that fight in the live thread, so I won't do it here. I'll just say that as radical and upsetting as it might seem, it might be time for HBO to consider revamping their boxing team.

In other action tonight:

• Evander Holyfield TKO-8 Francois Botha in Las Vegas. Our own Brickhaus said there were a few hundred people in attendance. The fight was apparently dirty, as you'd likely expect.
• Mark Jason Melligen UD-10 Norberto Gonzalez, and Lamont Peterson TKO-7 Damian Fuller.
• David Estrada RTD-8 Orlando Lora. This was the ESPN2 fight tonight. I didn't see the last few rounds, but what I did see was Estrada, who didn't have much pop left, just slicing and dicing Lora. Lora clearly had stepped out of his league.
• Cristian Mijares won a split decision over Francisco Arce.  While losses to Darchinyan and even Cermeno might have been forgivable, a near loss to Panchito probably means that Mijares is about done.  Also on that card, Julio Cesar Miranda got back on the winning track with a third round knockout of Faustino Cupul.

Tonight's live boxing on HBO starts at 10:30pm, preceded at 10pm by the Mosley-Mayweather "24/7" debut. Andre Berto battles Carlos Quintana in the main event, and Celestino Caballero and Daud Yordan meet in a very intriguing featherweight bout in the co-feature. Join us!

ANDRE BERTO		CARLOS QUINTANA
	Main Event

Tomorrow night's HBO double-header is a good way to kick off the month for the cable giant, which has had a pretty slow year thus far in the ring, but one that's about to pick up in a major way. You could consider this card the leadoff hitter for what is about to be a massive run of intriguing fights (Pavlik-Martinez, Arreola-Adamek, Mosley-Mayweather, Williams-Cintron, Khan-Malignaggi all coming in the next five weeks).

WBC Welterweight Title: Andre Berto v. Carlos Quintana

As we discussed yesterday, Berto's paper title finally became somewhat legit last year when he survived a tough challenge from Luis Collazo in January 2009. But since then, he's fought just once, against 140-pounder Juan Urango, a dull fight that earned Berto more skeptics than fans. His January 2010 bout with Shane Mosley was canceled after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, and now we're here with the young titlist facing Quintana, who has taken "0s" from Joel Julio and Paul Williams.

Quintana's style can definitely make him a spoiler on his best days. He's a talented southpaw, probably not as tricky as Collazo, but a stronger puncher. He's also probably less durable. Miguel Cotto blasted him, Paul Williams took him out in one round in their rematch, and in December, Jesse Feliciano put Quintana on the canvas before losing the bout the next round due to a cut.

The questions are simple, and hardly unique to this fight:

• Can Quintana keep up with a faster, fresher, younger fighter?
• Is Berto ready to go after nearly a year out of the ring?

On the first point, my mind's eye just can't see Quintana keeping up. To make this a fight, I think Quintana's going to have to put some fear into Berto early in the bout, the way Luis Collazo did. Given that Quintana can punch, I think he can do that, but I don't know that he'll be able to.

Berto has been at his best when he swarms opponents, rather than laying back and letting them come to him. He struggle with Collazo perhaps not just due to Collazo's skill and craftiness, but because he may have taken Collazo lightly. After all, every fight in his career until that point had been more or less easy work for him. He'd had no real trouble with guys like Forbes, Trabant, Rodriguez and Estrada, and Cosme Rivera's knockdown of Berto was a flash knockdown. Berto dominated the rest of that fight. There were some sturdy guys in there (Estrada, Rivera and Forbes are tough, if nothing else), and Berto basically walked through them, because his natural ability allowed him to.

He's better than Quintana. On pure skill, he is better than Carlos Quintana, and it's not particularly close. Berto has star potential still, I believe. He's got the ability to be an exciting fighter. But does he want to? Against Urango, you could argue that Berto fought smart, but it was also dead boring. Comparisons to a young Shane Mosley started waning a bit after that fight, at least until Berto and Mosley sat down at a table with Max Kellerman.

Berto (25-0, 19 KO) could really use a good performance, but I hesitate to say he actually needs it. He needs it if he cares about the way he's perceived, but he probably doesn't. A win here sets Berto up as a logical next opponent for either Manny Pacquiao or the Mosley-Mayweather winner. He'd be an unbeaten guy with the green belt and the support of HBO. Whether or not Berto would want to step up like that is up in the air, but you kind of question what else he could really do. The division doesn't have much going on past the top guys. Miguel Cotto is moving up to 154 in his next fight, Joshua Clottey is sort of an outcast now after his performance against Pacquiao. Berto could make a WBC-approved defense against the Collazo-Aydin winner, but why would he do that if there's money on the table for a Mayweather, Mosey or Pacquiao fight?

But that's all in the possible future. On Saturday, Berto is the overwhelming favorite, and he should be. If he comes to be impressive, I don't think Quintana lasts past six or seven rounds. Quintana has been intending to move up to 154 for good, but he keeps getting called back to 147. He was set to fight Joshua Clottey, but that went under, so he fought Feliciano in December. 154 was still his spot, unless he got the call at 147 again, which he has. Is 147 really good for him anymore? There's more money to be made at welter than junior middle, so the only reasonable explanations are that he's belt-crazy (where he can win one easier at 154, conceivably), or he has trouble making the weight strongly.

I think a lot of people might worry too much about Quintana being a southpaw. He's a southpaw, and a good one, but Luis Collazo is better and, again, just slicker and trickier. Quintana isn't much to figure out. He's a fairly basic guy. If Berto struggles with Quintana stylistically, then we can start saying that Andre Berto definitely has trouble with southpaws, because he really shouldn't be greatly troubled by Quintana's left-handedness.

Bottom line: if Andre Berto is mentally right, if he's physically right, he'll steamroll Carlos Quintana. Quintana should not be totally counted out, but I don't like his chances in this matchup to say the least. Berto TKO-7

Featherweights, 12 Rounds: Celestino Caballero v. Daud Yordan

Indonesian Yordan is like a mini-legend at this point. For 4 minutes and 47 seconds back in March 2009, Yordan (25-0, 19 KO) was giving Robert Guerrero hell on HBO. A cut came from a clash of heads, a bad cut, and Guerrero quit on the spot. Yordan was an unknown coming in, and yes he looked good, but we're talking about less than five minutes of action against the only notable opponent of Yordan's entire career.

Now he's back after a couple more wins on his home turf, and he takes on long-reigning junior featherweight titlist Celestino Caballero, who is jumping to 126 pounds. He might be chasing Juan Manuel Lopez in his own mind, but should he beat Yordan, he's more likely to face Lopez's stablemate, Yuriorkis Gamboa. Caballero (33-2, 23 KO) is what he is. He's tall, he's exceptionally awkward, and on some nights, he looks like an impossible task for most guys.

He tore Steve Molitor apart when they fought. But he then had a lot of trouble with Jeffrey Mathebula. He also once got more test than he should have from Jorge Lacierva, in what was one of the dirtiest fights you'll see. He's got a bunch of quality wins on his record: Molitor, Daniel Ponce de Leon, Somsak Sithchatchawal, and others. He's a P4P contender in a lot of eyes. And with his crazy dimensions (5'11" and fighting now at 126), he can simply be too much to handle for a lot of guys. Yordan, at 5'7", is a fairly standard featherweight.

I'm not picking a winner here. I simply do not know enough about Yordan. He looked good against Guerrero, but a lot of guys look good for two rounds. We'll find out a lot more about Daud on Saturday, but this is a dangerous fight for both guys, and a really outstanding co-feature for the show.

Saturday night's WBC welterweight title fight between Andre Berto and Carlos Quintana pits a young, unbeaten current titlist against a former titleholder whose reign was short, but who has twice in the past played major spoiler to guys who had no losses and were heavily favored.

Our full preview of the Berto-Quintana matchup, as well as the Caballero-Yordan undercard fight, will go up on Friday afternoon.

Fight 1: Michel Trabant (W-RTD-6 / February 9, 2008)

HBO aired all five of the fights we'll discuss, plus some of Berto's earlier bouts. It's been talked about before, but in some ways, HBO paying a relative premium to air garbage mismatches like this one, the next two, and some others before them kind of made Berto and DiBella Entertainment (as Berto's promoter) something of a monster, and they can only blame themselves. In locking up Andre Berto as an HBO Face of the Future: Today!, they allowed Berto an ego earlier than he should have had one. I'm not saying it's a big, ugly ego, but he thinks highly of himself, and in a lot of ways, he should. He's a good young fighter with plenty of promise and marketability. But he's not yet a star, despite years of HBO exposure and hype. Last year, DiBella plainly stated that after Collazo, they wanted an easier follow-up, as if one tough fight while calling yourself "welterweight champion" for a year gives you reason to pull on the reins. But can you blame them? In the past, HBO proved willing to accept crap and televise it, because Berto was on the rise. And we'll get to the belt in a moment.

Trabant came in with a sparkling 43-2-1 record, but he stood no chance whatsoever against Berto, who was about three times as fast and twice as powerful. Berto is a star-level boxer. Trabant is a guy with a fluffed-up record and regional ability. This fight was a clear mismatch from the very first round, as Trabant couldn't even pray his way into keeping pace with Berto. After six one-sided rounds, Trabant was finished.

Fight 2: Miki Rodriguez (W-TKO-7 / June 21, 2008)

Here's where we talk about Berto's laughable paper title. I'm not saying any of this to insult Andre Berto, or say that he shouldn't be proud to carry his belt, but the WBC may as well have gift-wrapped it. After Floyd Mayweather Jr. announced his retirement, the WBC in their infinite wisdom decided that Berto, who had zero world-class wins on his record, and Miguel Angel "Miki" Rodriguez should fight for the vacant title belt.

It's crap like this that makes me go on and on about these hypocrite criminals as much as I do to this day. I mean, I know you all know that these guys are full of it, but if someone comes by who doesn't know that, I want it to be on the front page when I get a chance to really let loose. Rodriguez came in 29-2 with zero substantial wins. He had been put into a WBC eliminator back in 2005 against Carlos Baldomir, and I'm guessing the WBC did that because they figured Rodriguez would beat Baldomir, but Baldomir won and life went on. Rodriguez won a couple fights and they gave him a crack at the vacant belt. It made no sense then, makes no sense now. This is the same organization that "suspended" Cris Arreola because he cursed on pay cable television.

Anyway, Rodriguez was game and bless him, he tried, but this was basically a repeat of the Trabant fight and several others that Berto had already been in. He thrashed an inferior foe and picked up another win, but this time he got to leave the building calling himself "world champion." This is where Andre Berto got his belt.

Fight 3: Steve Forbes (W-UD-12 / September 27, 2008)

I know Steve Forbes has plenty of fans. He's a great guy. He's humble, he's soft-spoken, he works his ass off, and he was a fine, fine fighter for many years. But this title shot was horrible. As a welterweight, Forbes is nothing more than a gatekeeper. This shot at Berto's belt accomplished three things, in my estimation:

• Gave Berto his biggest name foe to date
• Gave Berto what essentially amounted to a gimme win
• Gave Forbes a "hey, thanks" for taking that crud fight at 150 pounds against Oscar de la Hoya in May 2008

Forbes is a good boxer, but physically cannot keep up with a good welterweight. He's not fast, he has no punch, and he got by on slickness, intelligence and determination at his best. He was robbed of a win at 140 pounds over Demetrius Hopkins in 2007, but otherwise never did much of anything over 130 pounds. I also wanted to note, since I don't know that we ever did, that "2 Pound" was upset by Harrison Cuello in his return to the ring in March, after a year off. He's all but done, and he was probably getting close to medium-well by the time he even got to Berto.

Fight 4: Luis Collazo (W-UD-12 / January 17, 2009)

Berto won his paper belt against Miki Rodriguez. He defended it against Steve Forbes. He earned it last year against Luis Collazo in a tremendous fight that kicked off a good year for HBO boxing.

Collazo is a bizarre guy when you analyze his record. He has almost no quality wins. Back in 2005, he beat Jose Antonio Rivera and then Miguel Angel "Santa Tokyo" Gonzalez, who was 35 and would be done after a couple wins in 2006. Those two wins, the best of Collazo's career, were five full years ago at this point, and had been four years out when he fought Berto. Since then, he has beaten this motley crew: Artur Atadzhanov, Edvan dos Santos Barros, Russell Jordan and David Gogichaishvili.

Of course, many argue he deserved the win over Ricky Hatton, but he didn't get it. (I thought he beat Hatton, but it was a close fight.) So here you have Luis Collazo, still considered by many to be among the ten best in the world at 147 (yours truly among them), and he has no worthwhile wins in five years now. That's weird. But then you see him fight someone good, and you get it. The guy can box. He's slick, but not too slick. He's not feather-fisted, but he's not a huge puncher. He seems to fight up to his competition when he has the chances.

In this fight, he had the chance, and again made the most of it, as he did against Hatton. Well, almost anyway. Berto was hurt early by Collazo, and quickly found himself in the fight of his life. In fact, Berto seemed almost lost in the ring at times, particularly early. Collazo gave a few rounds away, keeping the fight fairly tight.

When the 12th round rolled around, I had it dead even. Berto needed to win the round to keep his belt, at least as far as I figured, and that turned out to be the case on the official cards too. Berto finally proved himself a genuine top-tier welterweight with a stunning 12th round, as he came out guns blazing and completely overwhelmed Collazo, who couldn't get out of the blocks that round and basically had to cover up for three minutes as the young titlist staked his claim on the W. Berto won a very close decision in a fantastic fight. This was Andre's real coming out party, and at the same time again proved the worth of Luis Collazo. Collazo, for the record, travels to Turkey on June 5 to face Selcuk Aydin.

Fight 5: Juan Urango (W-UD-12 / May 30, 2009)

Following the Collazo fight, as I said earlier, DiBella and Berto wanted something easier. There was talk of Zab Judah, but as usual with Zab, it wound up being just talk. So Berto fought 140-pound titlist Juan Urango. It was a fight, like last Saturday's Juarez-Litzau snoozer, that could have been a war, or it could have been what it wound up being. It seems to me (and I haven't kept stats on this or anything) that when a fight can go one of two ways like that, it usually stinks.

Berto-Urango stunk to high heaven. It was a one-sided affair, but not with Berto battering the ultra slow, plodding Urango. Instead, Berto did a little work here and there, clearly won rounds, and also held and stayed the hell away from Urango as much as he possibly could. The boo-birds came out, and after the fight, analysis of Berto was a bit harsh. It was not the sort of performance people were looking for, to say the least.

Berto then signed on to fight Shane Mosley in January of this year, but that fight was canceled when the massive earthquake ravaged Haiti, where Andre's family is from, and where much of his family still lives. We may never know what would have happened in that matchup. Mosley was the overwhelming favorite as far as I could tell, but everyone was looking forward to it. It would have been the biggest challenge of Berto's young career. As replacement fights go, Carlos Quintana isn't bad.

Now we look at Carlos Quintana's scattershot last five fights after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

On April 10, on the Berto-Quintana undercard, Celestino Caballero will be facing Daud Yordan for an interim featherweight title.  While pen has not been put to paper quite yet, the fight appears to be all but official, with both Pelenchin and Yordan already discussing the fight with the press.  The bout will be televised on HBO, taking the place of the postponed bout between Tavoris Cloud and Glen Johnson.

The fight could be interesting on several fronts.  Despite being a freakish 5'11", this will be Caballero's first fight against a decent opponent north of 122 pounds.  While he'll still have quite a reach advantage over the 5'7" Yordan, it should be interesting to see how he's able to adjust to the weight, especially considering that Caballero has never had problems making 122.  Rather than needing to move up, Caballero appears to be chasing the money, as none of the name fighters faced him when 122 was a stacked division, and now the bigger money is available at 126.  If Caballero wins, expect him to keep calling out Juan Manuel Lopez, and expect Lopez's team to keep ignoring him.

In addition, in Yordan's only prior U.S. televised appearance, he was making a good showing against Robert Guerrero, who seemed to opt out of the fight with his tougher than expected opponent after a clash of heads caused a cut.  We'll see whether Yordan was just a flash in the pan, but this is a very tough test for only his second U.S. fight. 

One thing this does highlight is the WBA's absurd policy of issuing up to three belts in each weight class.  The true titlist is Chris John.  The WBA then gave an interim belt to Yuriorkis Gamboa.  After John made his tenth defense against Rocky Juarez, the WBA promoted him to "super champion", making Gamboa the regular titlist.  The winner of this bout would be an interim titlist, despite there being two other titlists who are not only healthy but are actually making fights.  And even I don't know who's going to need to defend against whom.  The only benefit is that there really isn't a bad fight to be made between John, Gamboa and the Caballero-Yordan winner.

In a very disappointing bit of news, BoxingScene.com's Rick Reeno reports that light heavyweight titlist Tavoris Cloud has withdrawn from his April 10 fight with Glen Johnson, claiming a hamstring injury. In "unrelated news," Cloud has signed with Don King, meaning a legal battle is on the horizon.

Cloud was fighting for Richie Boy Promotions, but allegedly their contract is not valid. Though Cloud's injury is the official reason he's pulling out of the fight, Reeno says that everyone is blaming King for the cancellation of the fight, but they're probably the exact people you'd expect would blame King, i.e. those that are burned by Cloud signing with DKP.

As for Cloud signing with King, that's a whole other ball of wax. Everyone has their feelings on Don King and I'll leave all that out of it, but the fact is he's just not much of a promoter anymore. If Cloud had wanted to sign with a big dog promoter, I'm sure Top Rank, Golden Boy or DiBella would have been more than happy to talk turkey with him, and they are all far more active as fight promoters than King is these days. Look at what's happened to Devon Alexander's development under King. The fact that he holds a world title is pure talent, really, and he's getting his first HBO main event on Saturday. But it's been a long, frustrating road for Alexander, and his team has not been shy about their feelings for King's poor steering of Alexander's career.

Cloud (20-0, 18 KO) is 28 years old already. I know that's not old, but it's not exactly young for a guy with 20 pro fights, either. And he is very talented, a machine of a fighter who has an entertaining style and could be a real TV star with the way he goes about his business once the bell rings.

But Cloud also sat on his mandatory for a year while knowing full well he wasn't going to get a fight with Chad Dawson, who then held the IBF belt that Cloud now has. Cloud won it against Clinton Woods in August, and has sat out since then, too. The fight with Woods was Cloud's first in 12 months.

I'm also not saying that King won't be a better political promoter than the guys with whom Cloud was working. He probably will be. But overall, Don just doesn't get many TV dates anymore, and his stable of fighters is pretty lacking. That could be a strength if he used his limited crop to really focus in on a few guys (Alexander, Cloud, Joseph Agbeko, etc.), but he hasn't proven that he'll do that.

Still, King isn't looking to vacate, at least not now. Right now, they're asking for a medical extension.

For more on the situation, Dan Rafael of ESPN.com has quotes from Lou DiBella that will lead plenty to believe the injury is a sham.

To replace Cloud-Johnson as the co-feature to Andre Berto-Carlos Quintana on April 10, HBO is already trying to set up a featherweight battle between junior featherweight titlist Celestino Caballero and Indonesian Daud Yordan. That's a very suitable replacement, and the winner would be right in the hunt as HBO starts focusing in on the featherweights, putting heavy stock into Juan Manuel Lopez and Yuriorkis Gamboa in particular.

An interesting double-header for April 10 on HBO is being discussed, with one of the fights nearly finalized.

In the main event that night, WBC welterweight titlist Andre Berto would defend against former titleholder Carlos Quintana, which is all but completed, says Rick Reeno. Berto (25-0, 19 KO) pulled out of a scheduled January 30 fight with Shane Mosley after the earthquake in Haiti. As of now, Berto hasn't fought since May 2009, when he won an easy, dull 12-round decision over 140-pound titlist Juan Urango.

Quintana (27-2, 21 KO) would be one of the two best opponents of Berto's career, along with fellow crafty southpaw Luis Collazo, who nearly upset Berto in January '09. The 33-year-old Puerto Rican Quintana is in a Michael Corleone position with this one, as he's tried to stay at 154 pounds since the first-round rematch loss to Paul Williams in 2008. He's fought just twice since then, beating Joshua Onyango and Jesse Feliciano, but he's been more notable for constantly being in talks to fight top welterweight contenders or prospects. Most recently, he was rumored to be matched with 154-pound prospect/contender Vanes Martirosyan, who struggled with Kassim Ouma in January. Many were calling for the Quintana "upset" in that one.

Now, it looks like he's headed for bigger money, an HBO date, and the chance to take another belt. But don't ignore the weight, either. It was Quintana's desire to stay at 154, meaning he was doing so for a reason. Maybe he just thought it would be easier to win a title (and it probably would be, unless Quintana wanted to chase the completely ridiculous IBF welterweight belt), but more likely the weight was giving him some problems, and he decided that moving up would benefit him.

The Berto fight is about the biggest thing he's going to get, bigger than any potential fight at 154 save perhaps for a third fight with Paul Williams, and that's not going to happen. My gut feeling is he's taking this one more for the money it presents than making his wisest career choice. If he can struggle down to 147 again (which he hasn't done in almost two years), then he makes good bank.

The other fight for the card would pit IBF light heavyweight titlist Tavoris Cloud (20-0, 18 KO) against Glen Johnson (50-13-2, 34 KO). Johnson just won the shot at the belt by dismantling Yusaf Mack on February 5. Cloud has been inactive (what's new?) since winning the strap against Clinton Woods last August.

With Cloud, Johnson and Berto all Floridians, chances are this card winds up in Florida, although Johnson has minimal following, Cloud built his career in Chicago and has fought just twice in Florida (his pro debut and the Woods fight), and Berto has also fought just two times in Florida (against Urango and once in 2005). Berto and Cloud still have enough future that building a home base for them down there would still be a worthwhile venture for sure, especially when you can advertise them both as "undefeated world champion."

Promoter Lou DiBella has also said he has an April 10 date at Madison Square Garden. There was talk that date could host Berto-Paulie Malignaggi.

With Juan Manuel Marquez apparently not interested in fighting Amir Khan on May 15 because he and trainer Nacho Beristain felt he was being treated as a "stepping stone," Paulie Malignaggi has come back into the picture immediately as the most desired option to face the WBA junior welterweight titlist.

There are a lot of catches, though. As was the case when this fight initially came up a while back, Malignaggi and promoter Lou DiBella are adamant that a deal has to be "fair," and that Malignaggi not be treated like a B-side to Khan, who will be making just his second appearance on HBO, and the first that anyone might watch. You may recall Khan's HBO debut came against a completely disinterested Steffy Bull a couple of years ago on the hideous Calzaghe-Manfredo show that nobody watched. His only other appearance on American TV was his March 2009 independent PPV fight with Marco Antonio Barrera, which again nobody watched.

Malignaggi, meanwhile, has a solid name, has HBO backing coming off of career-renewing fights with Juan Diaz, and can draw in New York. That's another thing: DiBella and Malignaggi do not want the fight to be in Las Vegas, which Khan-Marquez would have been. And they're right to not want that, too. It won't draw anybody.

It's a tricky situation, but it's workable for sure. Khan and Golden Boy know their true position here as the incoming hopeful star. Yes, he has a title, but Malignaggi is still more established in America. Khan would still get to keep all of the British TV money, and he'd still make plenty of dough. Malignaggi is also, in theory, a perfect opponent for Khan, or at least as perfect as they get. With Khan's chin being the consistent worry, having him fight a guy with no punch would be the best thing.

With Khan turning into more of a tactician than the aggressive young fighter he was before, Khan-Malignaggi doesn't promise much by way of blood or guts. It could, however, be an incredibly interesting chess match between a couple of guys with fast hands and good boxing skills. My instinct is to say that the veteran Malignaggi has more savvy than Khan, but Khan has Freddie Roach, too. It could be a very good fight.

If Malignaggi does land this fight as it seems to me he should, that would leave Andre Berto open again. DiBella had been trying to finalize a welterweight title fight between Berto and Malignaggi for April 10 in New York, and Rick Reeno says that two potential opponents for Berto on that date (if he keeps the date) would be Carlos Quintana (who has said he's staying at 154) and Kendall Holt (a former 140-pound titlist). If you ask me -- and I note that nobody has -- Berto's camp should do everything they can to get Zab Judah in there. It would make it perfectly reasonable to keep the fight in NYC, and Zab's about as good a welterweight opponent as they're going to find. That or a Luis Collazo rematch, which isn't happening.

A major fight being discussed for April 10, according to ESPN's Dan Rafael, is a welterweight title bout between WBC strapholder Andre Berto and junior welterweight contender Paulie Malignaggi. Berto recently pulled out of a January 30 date with Shane Mosley due to family concerns in Haiti, leaving him open. With Mosley signing to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. on May 1 and Manny Pacquiao, Joshua Clottey and Miguel Cotto all looking tied up within the Top Rank family for their next fights, it leaves Berto with few viable options.

Malignaggi's promoter Lou DiBella has Madison Square Garden booked for April 10, which came about when Paulie was being discussed as a possible Mayweather opponent. With MSG available for them, Berto-Malignaggi at the Garden could be fun. It's not a great fight, don't get me wrong. If you've been around BLH for any amount of time, you probably know I really like Malignaggi for a variety of reasons, but I have my doubts that he'd fare very well against Berto. Andre is fast and a pretty good puncher, two things that Juan Diaz is not, and Paulie's career renaissance was built on a controversial loss to and clear win over Diaz in 2009.

On the other hand, Berto will have been out of action since last May, whenever he fights, and he fought Juan Urango in a complete stinker. It would be a bit bothersome to Berto keeps fighting junior welters, but I also can't really lose sleep about it. There aren't any names at 147 past the elite guys mentioned in the first paragraph here, and they're busy. Who's he going to fight? Selcuk Aydin? Rafal Jackiewicz? There's just not much out there, and Berto having to cancel the Mosley fight really threw a wrench into him getting a good fight for 2010.

Malignaggi also recently ripped junior welterweight titlist Amir Khan. Paulie's a solid trash talker, but Khan got back a pretty good shot, too.

"Ask Oscar [De La Hoya] and Richard [Schaefer] why we're not fighting each other. Him and Freddie Roach refused! So we moved on and got bigger and better [things]. We've got bigger fish to fry than Amir Con on April 10. If Amir Khan wants it, then he knows our number. We called him out numerous times. ... Khan doesn't want it. He knows who is the man."

Khan's reply, snipped:

"I will come to Paulie's city to defeat him and put up the WBA title on May 15th. I have an HBO date. Let's get it on. Don't p***y out."

I highly doubt Khan-Malignaggi is a realistic option right now, at least so long as Golden Boy remains confident that they can make Khan-Juan Manuel Marquez happen for May. There's nothing they gain if Malignaggi beats Khan. If Marquez does it, at least they promote Marquez and it'd be a good bounce-back win for the man who remains Mexico's No. 1 star.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on Berto-Malignaggi? Yea or nay?