Former welterweight champion Andre Berto is ready to follow in the footsteps of his family members.
He wants to explore his mixed martial arts roots, by entering the UFC. Berto's brother Edson and sister Revelina are MMA fighters, and his father Dieuseul fought at UFC 10.
Berto is also close friends with UFC two division champion Conor McGregor.
This past Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, McGregor went in the other direction by ** his professional boxing debut against Floyd Mayweather, who is 40 years old and came back to the ring after two years in retirement.
While McGregor started well, he was gassing out by the ninth round and was eventually stopped in the tenth round.
Mayweather had retired back in September 2015 - and person he defeated was Berto, by way of a twelve round unanimous decision.
Berto spoke to TMZ Sports and said he was ready to follow McGregor, who is planning to return to the UFC to defend his lightweight world title.
Berto wants to speak to UFC President Dana White to explore that possibility.
"Tell Dana (White) to call me. I'll go to the UFC. I wanna be the first fighter ever to be a world champion in boxing and then go get a world title," Berto said.
Back in August 2010, former world champion James Toney tried his hand in the UFC.
While being older than Berto, Toney was matched against another older veteran, UFC icon Randy Couture, at UFC 118. The fight didn't last took long, with Couture taking Toney down and submitted him in the first round.
Berto, who turns 34 on September 7, has only fought twice since the Mayweather loss. He stopped Victor Ortiz last year in their rematch, but in April of this year he was stopped by Shawn Porter at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
2023-10-19 09:44:17
