Andre Berto didn't just take a loss to Robert Guerrero Saturday night; his face swelled up like some character out of a fantasy movie.
Losing is never fun, but who would like to wake up on a Sunday morning looking like that? Do you realize how much that probably hurts? I can't say for sure, and I hope to never find out, but I can't imagine that it feels very good.
This punishment was the result of a 12-round thriller. Berto was knocked down in the first and second round, but he kept on coming. Being a glutton for punishment usually has its consequences, and that's very evident in this particular case.
Berto may be a former two-time world champion, but Guerrero is the interim WBC welterweight titleholder. With a 30-1-1 record entering Saturday night's fight, it wasn't hard to tell that Guerrero had the chops to take Berto down.
Boxing fans are used to seeing cuts, scrapes, gashes and swelling, but Berto's eyes don't even look real. He looks like he's in a movie about boxing with trained makeup artists applying those injuries to each orbital region, but he's not.
That's what a real battle looks like. That's what it looks like when two fighters go toe to toe for the length of a fight, refusing to give in to the other.
It's not like Berto will suffer dramatically from Saturday's outcome. He's still 28-2, and, at 29 years old, he has plenty of time to climb the rungs of the welterweight division again.
His face took the bigger beating. He fought a great fight himself, but Guerrero didn't look like that afterwards. Guerrero can look back at pictures from Saturday, see Berto's face, and realize that he did that to another man.
It will serve as a trophy for Guerrero, giving him something to hang his hat on, while Berto recovers and begins training for a bounce-back fight in the future.
Cuts are commonplace in the ring, but, every once in awhile, a boxer takes enough punishment to make casual fans do a double-take.
Berto definitely falls under that category. People will remember the images of his face for a long time, even if they forget who won or lost the fight itself.
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