ANDRE BERTO vs STEVE FORBES

Andre Berto, one of the brightest young stars on the boxing scene, makes his first defence of the WBC welterweight title on Saturday’s HBO show when he takes on durable and crafty veteran Steve Forbes.

This is a fight that the 25-year-old Berto is heavily favoured to win, and he does indeed look like being too big, too young and too strong for the 31-year-old challenger. What people will be most interested in seeing is how Berto copes with Forbes and, of course, whether he can become the first to stop the veteran.

Berto has so far done everything could be asked of him. He has never come close to losing in his 22 consecutive wins — unless you count a flash knockdown suffered against tough Mexican Cosme Rivera — and he has given some powerful performances, especially when he stopped David Estrada in 11 rounds and in his last fight when he hammered Mexican Miguel Rodriguez in seven rounds to capture the vacant WBC title.

If Berto could be faulted it is that sometimes he can seem a bit too easy to hit, but when he is in full flow and letting the combinations fly his attack is his best defence.

In Forbes, Berto is meeting a boxer not considered a hard hitter, although I wouldn’t say the challenger is a so-called powder-puff puncher by any means. Forbes did have Oscar De La Hoya’s handsome features a bit puffed and marked in their 12-rounder last May. However, Forbes certainly doesn’t seem to hit with the sort of authority that will keep a young tiger like Berto in his place.

This, then, is a fight where I think Berto should be able to put a lot of pressure on his opponent and perhaps take some chances without too much concern about getting clipped by something significant.

Berto is a young man who likes to take care of business, which means getting his opponent out of the fight, and while it is not his way to rush things I think he will have it in mind to bring down the curtain some time before the 12th round is reached.

Forbes is a classy boxer, almost old school in the way he slips and blocks punches, rolling with the punches and countering. He is dead game, too. There were two or three times in his one-sided loss to De La Hoya when it looked to me as if Forbes could be on the verge of getting stopped, but he always fought back.

Anyone looking at the way Forbes went the distance with Oscar might think at first glance that at worst he will go 12 rounds with Berto, too, but I am not so sure.

De La Hoya seemed to make several concerted efforts to stop Forbes, but he didn’t sustain the offensives and settled back to pick up points with jabs and nice combinations.

Berto, I think, will be going about things a bit differently. I think he will be staying on top of Forbes, not blasting away as such but seeking to hit him with quick, crisp punches, the sort that can add up over the course of a fight when they are administered steadily, round after round.

This sort of consistent punching can break down the resistance of even the most resolute of boxers.

Forbes has always shown a sound chin but he did look a little the worse for wear in the De La Hoya fight, with a cut over the right eye, some swelling around the eye, a bit of a nose bleed. Berto, who is certainly capable of hitting solidly, should be able to do some damage as the fight wears on.

I expect Forbes to be stubborn and competitive in the earlier rounds, and his hand speed could give Berto some problems. Gradually, though, slowly but surely, I think that Berto will begin to assert himself in such a way that the possibility of a stoppage will loom large.

There is no way that Forbes will get quickly blown out, but I do think that around the ninth and 10th rounds he will be struggling to hold Berto off.

I started out thinking that a win on points was the logical outcome here — and on paper, so it is — but the more I have thought about it, the more I have come to the conclusion that Berto is going to wear down and then overwhelm his gallant opponent for a late-rounds stoppage — perhaps in the 11th.