| Date | April 16, 2011 | |
| Location | Foxwoods Resort Casino, Mashantucket, Connecticut, USA | |
| Title(s) on the line | WBC Welterweight Title. | |
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| Andre Berto vs. Victor Ortiz | ||
| Vicious | ||
| Tale of the tape | ||
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| Miami, Florida | From | Garden City, Kansas |
| 27-0-0 (21 KO's) | Pre-fight record | 28-2-2 (22 KO's) |
| 5′ 8″ | Height | 5′ 9″ |
| WBC Welterweight Champion. | Recognition | The Ring's No. 9 ranked Jr. Welterweight |
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| Result | Ortiz defeated Berto by unanimous decision. | |
Andre Berto vs. Victor Ortiz is a 147-pound world title fight, that aired on HBO's Boxing After Dark.[1] As part of an HBO televised broadcast, the split-site double-header included WBA junior welterweight Championship Amir Khan vs. Paul McCloskey, Khan fighting from his native England.[2]
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Berto is coming off a tremendous TKO victory over Freddy Hernandez. Berto successfully defended his WBC welterweight title, stopping Freddy Hernandez at 2:07 of the first round.[3] He hammered Hernandez (29-2) with a left hook, then floored him with a straight right during the co-feature fight of the Juan Manuel Marquez-Michael Katsidis lightweight championship bout.
While Ortiz's last battle ended up being a draw against Lamont Peterson that could have delay that desire on the Amir Khan-Marcos Maidana junior welterweight title fight undercard.[4] Peterson went down for the first time from a right hand that finished a four-punch combination. Peterson got up quickly and did not appear hurt. But he was moments later from another punch and he grabbed on to Ortiz as they tumbled to the mat. Whether Ortiz had a good or bad performance on December 11th, there's no doubt that both Andre Berto and Victor Ortiz are two of the hottest prospects in any division.[5]
Both rapper 50 Cent and #2 P4P boxer in the world Floyd Mayweather, Jr. were sitting in ring side.[6]
The fight was sanctioned as a world title fight in the welterweight division, where the weight limit is 147 pounds. However, Berto's camp agreed to fight at a catchweight of "145 pounds plus one"[7] to accommodate Ortiz, who was moving up from the 140 lb division.
Many said Ortiz would be the smaller man coming into the fight because he was moving up, but on fight night he was 161 on HBO's unofficial scale while Berto was 156.[8] At Friday's weigh in, Ortiz weighed in at the contracted catchweight of 146 pounds, while Berto weighed in at 145.5 pounds, half a pound under the contracted limit. Ortiz outpointed Andre Berto to take Berto’s welterweight title. Ortiz took the fight to Berto (27-1, 21 KOs) from the beginning and almost never let up. Berto, as brave as Ortiz was, fired back throughout the fight but was never able to fully cope with the challenger’s relentless pressure and hard, accurate punches. The knockdowns started almost immediately, Ortiz sending Berto down to one knee – and hurting him -- with a combination in the first round.[9] Berto returned the favor in the second with a right to the chin, forcing Ortiz to touch the canvas with his glove. Ortiz won the next three rounds by continuing to fire ill-intended shots at a remarkable rate, many of which landed. Again, Berto punched back but he simply couldn’t keep pace. Then, in the sixth round, came a moment that would determine once and for all what Ortiz was made of. He dropped his left hand and Berto landed huge right about two minutes into the round, putting Ortiz on his back and temporarily altering his consciousness. This time Ortiz would not only survive but, as if saying in spite of shaky legs “nothing is going to stop me,” he put Berto down with a short left with a few seconds remaining in the round. Ortiz continued to make a big statement to the media and everyone else by controlling the remainder of the fight as he had most of the first six rounds, pounding Berto inside with hard shots to the body and head as Berto failed to keep up. [10]