(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Chris Williams: Adrien Broner (27-1, 22 KO’s) is once against telling the media that he’d very much like to get a fight against former 8 division world champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KO’s) if Pacquiao’s promoter Top Rank will let him get a shot at the 35-year-old Filipino star. Broner says in jest that he would pull out of his fight against Carlos Molina (17-1-1, 7 KO’s) for this Saturday and face Pacquiao instead if they let him get that fight.
“Where they at? Top Rank, they promoter, Pacquiao. We’ll fight Pacquiao,” Broner said to the media on Tuesday. “I’ll stop this fight [Carlos Molina] to fight Pacquiao. What would I got to do?”
Broner has made pretty good money during his 6-year pro career, but he’s not made the huge money that the typical opponent of Pacquiao’s make. Broner would obviously like to get the money that he’d receive by fighting Pacquiao, as well as the attention from boxing fans. If Broner were able to take Pacquiao’s scalp, he’d likely get a rematch with him and make even more money. Even if Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum chose not to have Pacquiao fight Broner in a rematch, Broner’s popularity would skyrocket. He’d be right back where he was before his loss to Marcos Maidana last December, with many boxing fans seeing him once again as the guy to take over the sport once Floyd Mayweather Jr. retires in a year or two.
Arum would likely let Pacquiao fight Broner if Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer would agree to the fight. Broner might have to convince Schaefer and his adviser Al Haymon to let him take the fight with Pacquiao, but it’s a doable fight. Broner has a lot of pull with Golden Boy, and he can probably get his way if he pushes them really hard. After all, the last thing Golden Boy wants is for Broner to walk away after his contract with them expires. They need to keep Broner happy. The one that that will keep a Broner vs. Pacquiao fight from taking place is the network obstacles. Broner fights on Showtime, whereas Pacquiao fights on HBO. That’s something that might prove impossible for Broner to get around in order to get the Pacquiao fight.
I think Broner would give Pacquiao a lot of problems with his power and his defensive skills, and I can see this talented fighter catching Pacquiao with something big and knocking him out the same way Juan Manuel Marquez did. Pacquiao’s chin still seems a little shaky a year and a half later, as we saw in his last fight against Tim Bradley. Pacquiao was stunned by a shot from Bradley in the 4th round of that fight. Bradley isn’t known for his punching power, yet he had Pacquiao looking queasy after eating a right hand. Broner would need to sit down on his single punches, and focus on hitting Pacquiao as hard as he can with counter shots. Pacquiao, with his wide open offense, would create a lot of opportunities for Broner to hit him with hard counter shots, and it might be a matter of time before Broner knocks him out cold the way Marquez did. I rate Broner as being a better puncher than Marquez, and we saw what Marquez did to Pacquiao.
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