By Dan Ambrose: It looks like you can forget about a fight between former three division world champion Adrien Broner (28-2, 22 KO’s) and light welterweight slugger/contender Lucas Matthysse (35-3, 33 KOs) for September 6th. Showtime vice president Stephen Espinosa says that the two fighters will be competing on the same card on September 6th, but not against each other.
The idea is to have Broner, Matthysse and WBC featherweight champion Jhonny Gonzalez on the card, but with each of them facing other opponents. It’ll work if each of them are facing high quality opposition, but it doesn’t look like we’re going to be seeing that.
The names that are being mentioned as potential opponents for Broner are Josesito Lopez or Zab Judah. Those are decent opposition, but it’s not nearly as interesting as a Broner vs. Matthysse fight.
“Preliminarily, we’re thinking that it could be Broner and Matthysse in separate fights,” Espinoza said to RingTV.com. “Jhonny] Gonzalez may be there, but we’re not sure about the third fight.”
Broner needs a win over someone good at 140, and I’m not sure that Josesito Lopez, who has lost 3 out of his last 6 fights, fits the category of being a good opponent at this point. He was stopped by Marcos Maidana, Saul Canelo Alvarez and outpointed by Jessie Vargas.
If the idea is that the casual boxing fans will drive interest in a Broner vs. Lopez or Broner vs. Judah fight, then they could be right. Casual fans will likely be pleased to see Broner fight Lopez or Judah, but probably not hardcore fans, because they want to see Broner fight someone who is actually relevant in the 140 pound division. You can’t say that Juday or Lopez are relevant right now.
Matthysse stopped John Molina by an 11th round knockout last April in a fight that was more competitive than it was thought to be going into the fight. Fans had assumed that Matthysse would crush Molina in one or two rounds going into the fight. After all, Antonio DeMarco had halted Molina in one round in 2012, and it was widely assumed that Matthysse could do an even better job. In his fight before that, Matthysse was beaten by WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia by a 12 round decision last September.
Jhonny Gonzalez defeated Abner Mares by a 1st round knockout last year in August. Gonzalez has fought once since then in beating Clive Atwell by a 10 round technical decision last May. Gonzalez reportedly is interested in facing Jorge Arce in a fight that would likely be a mismatch, but one that casual boxing fans would be interested in seeing.
Comments are closed.