Adrien Broner: By the end of the year I’ll be a PPV star

By Boxing News - 02/14/2013 - Comments

broner563By Scott Gilfoid: Boxing fans had better enjoy seeing the talented WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner (25-0, 21 KO’s) on regular HBO broadcasts while they still can because by the end of 2013 they may be having to pay to see Broner on pay per view on HBO, at least that’s what the 23-year-old Broner is saying.

Broner said to thaboxingvoice.com “By the end of the year I’ll be a pay per view attraction.

If this turns out to be true then Broner will have be way ahead of what Floyd Mayweather Jr. accomplished when he first became a PPV attraction. For Mayweather Jr, he didn’t become a PPV star until his 11th year as a pro when he fought Oscar De La Hoya in 2007. It was that fight that made Mayweather Jr. a big PPV star, and he’s been on PPV ever since.

In contrast, Broner is only in his 5th year as a pro, and he’s not had a big name opponent in order to branch over into PPV fights. You certainly can’t say that Broner’s opponent for this Saturday night in Gavin Rees (37-1-1, 18 KO’s) will be someone that will excite the boxing public enough to where they’ll want to pay to see Broner fight.

You can’t say that a Broner vs. WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns will be a big enough fight to win Broner a lot of fans to get to the PPV mark. I think it might take some courage on Golden Boy’s and Broner’s part for him to get to the PPV level by having Broner move up to welterweight and face someone like Amir Khan or Victor Ortiz.

If Golden Boy tries to ask the U.S boxing public to pay big money to see Broner fight the likes of Burns or Miguel Vazquez at lightweight, then it’s going to be an utter failure. I can’t see U.S boxing fans wanting to pay big money to see Broner fight guys like Danny Garcia or Lucas Matthysse at 140. The only fight at 140 where I see the U.S boxing fans willing to pay in high numbers for Broner is against Amir Khan, and I don’t think that fight can be made.

Golden Boy is taking it easy with Khan since he was knocked out by Danny Garcia, and I expect they’ll continue to spoon feed Khan until he fights Garcia again, at which point Khan will likely get knocked out again.

Broner needs to move up to 147 if he wants to become a PPV star, and I hope Golden Boy lets him know this sooner rather than later so he doesn’t have any false hopes about boxing fans being willing to pay to see him wipe out over-matched, under-talented lightweights. No one cares about that division in terms of U.S boxing fans, and he’s going to have to get a clue about this soon so he can stop wasting his time beating up on these fodder opponents.



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