By Scott Gilfoid: A fight between lightweight John Molina (27-3, 22 KO’s) and Adrien Broner (27-1, 22 KO’s) is being talked about for the co-feature bout on the May 3rd Showtime pay-per-view card headlined by Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Marcos Maidana from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to Fighthype.
A Broner-Molina fight is basically a move where Broner would be moving back down to the lightweight division. The plan is for Molina to move up to light welterweight to face Broner. Molina was beaten last year by lightweight Andrey Klimov in losing a 10 round decision. In 2012, Molina was blown out in 1 round by Antonio DeMarco. If you remember, DeMarco is the same guy that Broner destroyed in 8 rounds in 2012. So if Showtime is interested in having Broner vs. Molina as their co-feature bout on the Mayweather-Maidana fight card, they’re essentially blessing a mismatch that will take place on the card. But it’s still good for Showtime, because it’ll make Broner look a lot better than he really is. If he beats Molina with ease, the casual boxing fans will see Broner as having redeemed himself from his loss to Maidana from last December, even tough that would be the furthest thing from the truth. Molina isn’t a major player at lightweight, so Broner would be facing a fringe [read: lower ranked] lightweight contender in Molina to fight at 140. All the advantages will be going to Broner in this fight.
Mayweather can do better than this for his fight card, and I’m hoping he doesn’t let the Broner vs. Molina fight take place because it brings nothing to his fight card. You’re not going to be able to advertize Broner-Molina and expect casual boxing fans to get excited about the fight, and definitely not hardcore fans who obviously still remember how easily DeMarco blew out Molina. If they’re going to feed a sacrificial lamb to Broner for him to destroy, I’d rather it be a light welterweight contender that can actually fight and who won’t just be blown out in 1 or 2 rounds like Molina will be.
Amir Khan was someone that has been me mentioned recently as a potential opponent for Broner, but the chances of that fight went downhill with Showtime vice president in charge of sports Stephen Espinoza saying “Broner is going down to 140 and that Khan wants to fight at 147, so the weight classes don’t match. Fighting at a catch-weight doesn’t help either of them in terms of adjusting to the new weight. It’s a good fantasy boxing matchup, but it doesn’t fit with each guy’s objectives going forward.”
You can read that anyway you want to, but I see it as Espinoza saying ‘I don’t want to put a Khan-Broner fight on Showtime.’ It’s understandable why he wouldn’t. Having Broner and Khan fight each other would be a waste for Showtime, because their better off if Khan and Broner are winning instead of losing, even if it means having them fighting guys that have absolutely zero chance of beating, like John Molina does against Broner.
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