Kovalev-Pascal, Berto-Lopez, Porter-Garcia Preview

Al Haymon in recent months has purchased a lot of air time on normal cable stations. Last week he had the premiere of Premiere Boxing Champions with Keith Thurman and Adrien Broner defeating Robert Guerrero and John Molina Jr respectively. This week will be the debut of boxing on Spike TV, live from Ontario, California. There will be a pair of welterweight fights as Andre Berto squares off against Josesito Lopez, and Shawn Porter will step into the ring against Roberto Garcia, both fights being 12 round, non-title bouts. Andre Berto (29-3 with 22 KOs) is trying to avoid losing his 4th fight in his last 6 bouts. He was on the fast track to stardom, making millions per fight at a young age, and had a record of 27-0. Then after having the best fight of 2011 against Victor Ortiz, everything seemed to crumble for the proud Haitian. Berto did bounce back against Jan Zaveck his next bout, but then lost in upsets to both Robert Guerrero and Jesus Soto Karass. After injuring his shoulder against Soto Karass, Berto didn’t step back into the ring for 14 months, which was last September. He had an easy fight and now is stepping the level of competition up in hopes of proving that his career isn’t over.  On March 14 Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (26-0-1, 23 KOs) will compete in his first title defense as Unified WBO, WBA and IBF Light Heavyweight World Champion against former lineal light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (29-2-1, 17 KOs) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Kovalev completed the first half of his preparations in Big Bear Lake, CA then moved to Miami, FL where he is finishing training camp with his trainer, John David Jackson.