By Victor Salazar
New York - Welterweight Shawn Porter (26-2-1, 16 KO’s) has been out of the ring since June of 2016 when he lost a decision to newly unified WBC, WBA welterweight champion Keith Thurman (28-0, 22 KO’s), which took place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Porter has a date with a new foe in Andre Berto (31-4, 23 KO’s), and the two former welterweight champions will collide at Barclays Center on April 22nd. The fight will be televised by Showtime.
The fight has been sanctioned as a World Boxing Council welterweight title eliminator and Porter feels that factor will raise the stakes a little for those interested in the fight. The winner will be in line for a crack at Thurman.
The match with Berto has been discussed for some time, with Porter being very eager to get him in the ring.
“I was told it was going to be in October,” Porter told BoxingScene.com. “So it has worked out and this is for a WBC title eliminator. Maybe for the public things have changed, maybe they’ll tune in more because there is more at stake but for me this was already a real fight, it was everything it can be. It makes it more exciting.”
Porter was not available to talk in the immediate aftermath of his loss to Thurman, but he maintains that losing and the possibility to secure the opportunity to avenge his last defeat - and gain another world title shot at the same time - has given him an abundance of motivation heading into the next fight.
“It was a tough pill to swallow,” Porter said of losing to Thurman. “I did everything I could do to win that fight. It hurt a little, but all you can do is work harder so that heartache and pain doesn’t come back and you come back and win. Now we got Andre Berto and we got the WBC title coming up soon. Every fighter wants to be a world champion. This one in particular is important being a part of the WBC lineage is important to me.”
