Garcia: Broner could face Matthysse in co-feature on Mayweather vs. Maidana II card

By Boxing News - 07/06/2014 - Comments

broner455By Allan Fox: If the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Marcos Maidana rematch does become a reality on September 13th, we could be seeing an equally important fight between Adrien Broner (28-1, 22 KO’s) and #2 WBC, #2 WBO, #3 IBF Lucas Matthysse (35-3, 33 KO’s) in the co-feature bout on the card, according to Maidana’s trainer Robert Garcia. He says that’s what he’s hearing will be the co-feature on the card.

“I’m hearing Adrien Broner vs. Lucas Matthysse,” Garcia said. “They said co-main event on Maidana-Mayweather.”

Matthysse looked shaky in his recent win over John Molina last April, and this could be the perfect time for Broner to fight him. Before that fight, Matthysse was beaten by WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia last September.

The question is would Broner’s adviser Al Haymon match him against a dangerous puncher like Matthysse? It’s possible, because Haymon also advises Matthysse as well. Broner vs. Matthysse would be a fight where Haymon is letting his fighters battle it out in a fight that could potentially help both of them. Even the loser of a Broner-Matthysse fight could come out of this having gained more fans as long as they give a good account of themselves.

More than anyone, Broner needs a big victory and an impressive performance after his recent fights against Carlos Molina, Maidana and Paulie Malignaggi. Broner looked less than impressive in those fights, and he needs a solid victory to prove to boxing fans that he’s capable of being a fighting at a high level in his new weight class at 140.

Broner was obviously too small to fight in the welterweight division at 147, but he didn’t look any better in his recent win over Molina at 140. That was the troubling part. Broner failed to dominate a guy in Carlos Molina that he should have been able to.

Adding Broner vs. Matthysse to the Mayweather-Maidana II fight card would be an excellent way of increasing the pay-per-views for the card. It’s unclear how many extra buys a fight of that magnitude would attract, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it brought in an extra 200,000 buys to the card because it’s that good of a fight. Adding Broner-Matthysse to the Mayweather-Maidana II card would be like a 1-2 punch, and it would be impossible for someone like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez to come along and try and compete with that card. Canelo said recently to Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions that he wants to fight on the big Mexican holidays in September and May, which is when Mayweather fights.

A fight between Broner and Matthysse bout would be a huge step up from Mayweather’s recent undercard for his win over Maidana from last May at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. On the card, Broner fought Molina, and Amir Khan Khan faced Luis Collazo. Neither of those fights did much for the card, because they weren’t compelling fights. They were essentially mismatches involving stars – Broner and Khan – being put in safe fights to make them look good. Both fighters did look good, but the mismatches did little to enhance the card, and they did a poor job of getting fans interested in purchasing the fight on Showtime pay-per-view.



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