Berto's corner was nonexistent

[IamInuit]

I have never seen a corner that disengaged, delirious and nonfunctional at this level in 40 years of following the sport. I'm sure their are others if I thought about it but Berto should shit can the entire lot imo.

Agreed, although Felix Trinidad's corner (particularly his dad) during his fight with Winky Wright fight should merit an "Honorable Mention", at least. Papa Trinidad seemed clueless, and offered no alternate plans for Tito to follow.

Yup no plan B. Shame as Tito was a good boxer earlier in his career which he rarely gets credit for. The moment his bone crushing power was discovered they abandoned boxing and began the plodding. I was a huge Tito fan, hell still am. Never liked the father son teams. Jack Mosley is another father who had no business in a corner.

[TitoFan]

I have never seen a corner that disengaged, delirious and nonfunctional at this level in 40 years of following the sport. I'm sure their are others if I thought about it but Berto should shit can the entire lot imo.

Agreed, although Felix Trinidad's corner (particularly his dad) during his fight with Winky Wright fight should merit an "Honorable Mention", at least. Papa Trinidad seemed clueless, and offered no alternate plans for Tito to follow.

Yup no plan B. Shame as Tito was a good boxer earlier in his career which he rarely gets credit for. The moment his bone crushing power was discovered they abandoned boxing and began the plodding. I was a huge Tito fan, hell still am. Never liked the father son teams. Jack Mosley is another father who had no business in a corner.

Uncle-nephew combos sometimes don't do so well, either. Cotto had his uncle in there for awhile, until they had a falling out. Then Cotto inexplicably hired Joe Santiago (?!?!?) as his trainer, until he came to his senses (and lost to Pac), and hired Emanuel Stewart. Best thing he could've done.

[Spicoli]

Its been that way for awhile yeh. When it gets thick it seems to devolve into a cross between a speech by Tony Robbins and quotes the gathered from Rocky, Rocky 5 I'd imagine.
Berto gets that confused face and looks to have no clue.


Less is best. He needs to change things and clean house if its going to help him improve.

[Hulk]

Its been that way for awhile yeh. When it gets thick it seems to devolve into a cross between a speech by Tony Robbins and quotes the gathered from Rocky, Rocky 5 I'd imagine.
Berto gets that confused face and looks to have no clue.


Less is best. He needs to change things and clean house if its going to help him improve.

"Be an Assassin Andre ! Be an assassin !"

[C-Lo]

Berto's corner would've been better off not being there. All he really needed was a cutman, just in case, and someone to give him a drink. His brother was just ridiculous! If I was the trainer I would've put him in his place or done something incredibly embarrassing with the camera right there so he would get the message.

[Lance Uppercut]

It was absolutely ridiculous for a professional fighter, have a corner where 3 people are talking to him at the same time.

[greynotsoold]

The role of the trainer in boxing today is, really, secondary. In the old days, the trainer taught the fighter to fight, developed and taught the game plan for the fight, conditioned the fighter, made sure he made weight, took care of his mental issues, made sure his ex-wife didn't get in the way, and got tickets to the fight for extended family members.
Now, you have cardio coaches and strength training coaches and sports psychologists and so on and so on. What you end up with is guys that can't fight, need advice between rounds, and don't have anybody to give it to them. When you have 300 people telling you what to do in the run-up to a fight, why not in the corner, too?

[IamInuit]

The role of the trainer in boxing today is, really, secondary. In the old days, the trainer taught the fighter to fight, developed and taught the game plan for the fight, conditioned the fighter, made sure he made weight, took care of his mental issues, made sure his ex-wife didn't get in the way, and got tickets to the fight for extended family members.
Now, you have cardio coaches and strength training coaches and sports psychologists and so on and so on. What you end up with is guys that can't fight, need advice between rounds, and don't have anybody to give it to them. When you have 300 people telling you what to do in the run-up to a fight, why not in the corner, too?

That’s a very salient point right their. There is really only a hand full of good trainers left that are on the big stage. The majority of the great trainers are quite literally in the gyms where all these guys learned their craft. No more Blackburn, Arcel or Dundee. No Clancy, Damato or Eddie Futch. Theirs but a smattering of real trainers at the top level left. Which is not only odd and disturbing but worrisome.

[JonnyFolds]

I have never seen a corner that disengaged, delirious and nonfunctional at this level in 40 years of following the sport. I'm sure their are others if I thought about it but Berto should shit can the entire lot imo.

Agreed, although Felix Trinidad's corner (particularly his dad) during his fight with Winky Wright fight should merit an "Honorable Mention", at least. Papa Trinidad seemed clueless, and offered no alternate plans for Tito to follow.

Yup no plan B. Shame as Tito was a good boxer earlier in his career which he rarely gets credit for. The moment his bone crushing power was discovered they abandoned boxing and began the plodding. I was a huge Tito fan, hell still am. Never liked the father son teams. Jack Mosley is another father who had no business in a corner.

Uncle-nephew combos sometimes don't do so well, either. Cotto had his uncle in there for awhile, until they had a falling out. Then Cotto inexplicably hired Joe Santiago (?!?!?) as his trainer, until he came to his senses (and lost to Pac), and hired Emanuel Stewart. Best thing he could've done.

Judah: Zab and Yoel... Look what his dumb-ass father and PBFs uncle did for them 4-5 years ago. Perfect example of how family can hold you back. If he had two guys who gave a shit about their fighters and not just family machismo, they would have let their fighters settle up in the ring.. Not fight as trainers in the ring! Nobody is paying to see that.

You know.. if any time Zabs corner should have erupted is when he fought Cotto. Cotto fought one of the dirtiest fights I had ever whitnessed against Zab.

Berto's brother is s F***ing moron. He would just repeat whatever the trainer said, but with a different emphasis. He clearly knows nothing about boxing.

Berto needs to go back and figure out who his core people are when fight night comes around. All things considered I don't think he could win that fight sitting on the ropes like he was anyway. But maybe if he had a real cornerman he would get told not to do that.

[Taeth]

I have never seen a corner that disengaged, delirious and nonfunctional at this level in 40 years of following the sport. I'm sure their are others if I thought about it but Berto should shit can the entire lot imo.

Agreed, although Felix Trinidad's corner (particularly his dad) during his fight with Winky Wright fight should merit an "Honorable Mention", at least. Papa Trinidad seemed clueless, and offered no alternate plans for Tito to follow.

Yup no plan B. Shame as Tito was a good boxer earlier in his career which he rarely gets credit for. The moment his bone crushing power was discovered they abandoned boxing and began the plodding. I was a huge Tito fan, hell still am. Never liked the father son teams. Jack Mosley is another father who had no business in a corner.

Tito was never a pure boxer even early. People just didn't realize how lead leg heavy he was until later on in his career. If you made Trinidad have to pick up his feet and reset himself then he literally couldn't punch.

As for Berto, I honestly never liked his trainer. This kid has a tremendous athletic potential, and yet he gets hit all the time, he has no defense. He doesn't feint or change it up at all. I thought he had that ability because he showed some signs of defense in his career before, but it's getting worse and worse, and I hope this is a wake up call, he needs to change his trainer first, and then his whole structure second.

[ElTerribleMorales]

IMO Berto's bad habits have finally come back to bite him in the ass, same thing with Lopez, Berto was happy fighting B level fighters and calling out the big names like Mayweather, Mosley, Pacquiao, and Cotto, yet would fight guys like Quintana, Freddy Hernandez, and Juan Urango (who would have been a good win at 140 and if he won like Alexander did), Berto IMO was never that good and too flawed for the big stage, Ortiz knocks him cold in a rematch

[fan johnny]

As if he had a corner before? Betro lost this fight because he got beat the shit out of by Ortiz. Corner or no corner he still gets ass beat.

[greynotsoold]

The whole idea about "how to fight a southpaw"- that being your left foot outside his right foot, throw the hook and straight right has been invented by people that don't and have never fought. When you are boxing, the idea is to get the inside punching position. By doing the above you surrender it. You put your lead hand- about 80% of your offense- outside his shoulder, where it can't land. You beat a southpaw by going to his left hand, making him throw it, then countering with left hooks or right uppercuts.
With Ortiz, you want him to establish that position- his right foot outside your left foot- because his left hand is weak, and because, and Berto hit him with this, once you go to his left he will flat turn around and follow you. He walks into the right hand. He got nailed doing this and went down, in the 6th, and Berto narrowly missed the same punch at least three more times. He was that close to winning.
They should have been telling Berto to slide right (not bail out like he often did) and hook of Ortiz's left, or make him turn and fire his right. Ortiz fought hard and clearly won, but he was never more than a punch away from it going the other way. Good drama.

[Gocougars3]

The whole idea about "how to fight a southpaw"- that being your left foot outside his right foot, throw the hook and straight right has been invented by people that don't and have never fought. When you are boxing, the idea is to get the inside punching position. By doing the above you surrender it. You put your lead hand- about 80% of your offense- outside his shoulder, where it can't land. You beat a southpaw by going to his left hand, making him throw it, then countering with left hooks or right uppercuts.
With Ortiz, you want him to establish that position- his right foot outside your left foot- because his left hand is weak, and because, and Berto hit him with this, once you go to his left he will flat turn around and follow you. He walks into the right hand. He got nailed doing this and went down, in the 6th, and Berto narrowly missed the same punch at least three more times. He was that close to winning.
They should have been telling Berto to slide right (not bail out like he often did) and hook of Ortiz's left, or make him turn and fire his right. Ortiz fought hard and clearly won, but he was never more than a punch away from it going the other way.

I didn't say you couldn't fight from there, I said the corner had no answers for the classic southpaw style. If you saw the fight you can't deny that was Ortiz's game plan and it worked. I agree there are counters to this strategy and the two mentioned can work but if you don't work on moving and pivoting right or you like to lead with your jab, problems arise. I see these issues every day as I work with a southpaw and he faces orthodox fighters that use this strategy in reverse. It can be frustrating to face as sometimes it limits your output.

[Jimanuel Boogustus]

Deja Vu

Good points though.

It's funny... Berto was doing more with his left hand (can't remember what exactly?) in round 6 and 7 and in fact he was stopping Ortiz using his right and so he was able to drive Ortiz backwards which made Ortiz fight negatively all of a sudden. Apparently Ortiz is only any good while coming forward.

After that though, Berto's tactics went to pot and just seemed content on driving into Ortiz I guess to hold ring center instead of utilizing the arsenal that was making that particular dynamic happen.

When ever Ortiz beat him to the 'drive' Berto (as Spicoli had mentioned) either reported to setting traps (or waited for Ortiz to 'over reach with left' as GNSO would put it) or just went back to the ropes like a complete looser!

Wired fight really Fucking exciting though!