By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Another welterweight fight at Barclays Center will be officially announced Saturday, a few hours before a better, bigger welterweight showdown takes place at the Brooklyn venue.
A press conference has been scheduled for late Saturday afternoon to announce that former welterweight champions Andre Berto and Shawn Porter will meet in a main event April 22 at Barclays Center. Showtime will televise Berto-Porter, a 12-round fight that took several months to get made.
The 29-year-old Porter (26-2-1, 16 KOs), a former IBF welterweight champion from Akron, Ohio, hasn’t fought since Keith Thurman beat him by unanimous decision June 25 at Barclays Center and has boxed just once since he defeated Adrian Broner by unanimous decision in June 2015 in Las Vegas.
Thurman-Porter was widely considered one of the best action fights of 2016 and led Thurman (27-0, 22 KOs, 1 NC), the WBA world 147-pound champion, toward his welterweight title unification fight against Danny Garcia (33-0, 19 KOs), the WBC world welterweight champion, on Saturday night at Barclays Center (CBS; 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT).
The 33-year-old Berto hasn’t been active recently, either. Berto (31-4, 24 KOs), a former WBC welterweight champion from Winter Haven, Florida, has boxed just once since Floyd Mayweather Jr. dominated him in their September 2015 fight in Las Vegas, after which Mayweather retired.
Berto knocked out rival Victor Ortiz in the fourth round of that fight, which took place April 30 in Carson, California. By winning that rematch, Berto avenged his 12-round, unanimous-decision defeat to Ortiz (31-6-2, 24 KOs) in their memorable WBC welterweight title fight five years earlier in Mashantucket, Connecticut.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
