Broner to move to lightweight after Escobedo fight on Saturday

By Boxing News - 07/18/2012 - Comments

Image: Broner to move to lightweight after Escobedo fight on Saturday(Photo: Pat Lovell – Hoganphotos/Golden Boy Promotions) By Scott Gilfoid: After WBO super featherweight champion Adrien Broner (23-0, 19 KO’s) blows out Vincente Escobedo (26-3, 15 KO’s) in their HBO televised bout, Broner says he’ll be moving up to the lightweight division to seek out greater accomplishments. There’s simply no one for the 22-year-old Broner to fight at 130, so he needs to move up to the lightweight division and go after the few names they have up there.

There’s honestly not a lot of talent at 1ightweight either now that Juan Manuel Marquez has moved up to light welterweight. The top fighters in the lightweight division are Miguel Vazquez, Ricky Burns, Antonio DeMarco, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Jorge Linares, Kevin Mitchell and Brandon Rios. Gamboa is the best of that bunch, and hopefully we can see a fight between Broner and him in the future. As far as Burns goes, I doubts we’ll ever see Burns face Broner, because Burns moved up in weight when he was fighting at super featherweight just when a fight between them became a possibility.

I imagine we’ll see the same thing happening at lightweight, so that’s probably a nonstarter. Broner is just too good and would blow Burns out in one or two rounds. I don’t Mitchell facing Broner either. He’d be lucky to last one round with Broner even if Mitchell ran. Fights between Broner and DeMarco and Linares are decent bouts, but nothing special. I can’t see Broner facing Rios, because he’s having weight problems and would be lucky if he could make the lightweight limit.

Broner is considered by many boxing fans to be the best fighter in the super featherweight division right now. The problem is the talent is so god awful poor that Broner doesn’t really need to get out of 1st gear to blow them all the way. There’s just too many limited fighters at that weight. On Saturday you’re going to see what I’m talking about when Broner totally schools Escobedo and blows him out early. The gap between Broner and the other fighters at that weight is too wide for him to get much from staying there. And top of that, there’s no names in that division for Broner to grow as a fighter.

Broner told RingTV “After this fight there really wouldn’t be a reason for me to stay in the weight class. So I’m going to go up a weight class and give the lightweights hell.”

Good luck in trying to get them to fight you, Adrien. It might be like pulling teeth. I’d hate to see guys like Burns and Mitchell to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a fight with Broner. That would look bad.



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