Broner: I know I can beat Maidana

By Boxing News - 12/25/2014 - Comments

broner111By Allan Fox: Adrien Broner (29-1, 22 KOs) has rebuilt his career since his disappointing loss to Marcos Maidana (35-5, 31 KOs) last year in December. Broner has won his last two fights, albeit against weak opposition.

Broner feels that he’s ready to face Maidana in a rematch, and he feels confident that he’ll defeat him when the time comes if they wind up facing each other again.

The problem that Broner has is the two fighters are now fighting in different divisions, as Broner is fighting at 140 and Maidana 147.

If there is going to be a fight between them, then it’s going to require for Broner to move back up to welterweight for the fight to take place. Maidana likely won’t be receptive in draining down to 140 to give the 25-year-old Broner an advantage.

“I feel like I can beat him,” Broner said about Maidana to Fighthype.com. “I know I can beat him.”

Broner says his next fight will be in his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio against an opponent still to be determined. March 7th was the date that was floated for Broner’s next bout, but he says that’s not yet been determined. He could still wind up fighting on a different date. If Broner does fight in March then the chances of him facing Maidana are zero, because that’s too soon for a fight of that nature to take place.

It’ll take more time than just several months for Maidana and Broner to ramp up for a rematch like that, especially given the ramifications for the fight. Broner literally can’t afford to get beaten again by Maidana, because that would be a fatal blow to his career. Broner lost a lot of stock from his loss to Maidana last December. A second defeat by Broner would pretty much wreck any chances of him becoming a pay-per-view star.

Once upon a time, Broner was seen by some boxing fans as the eventual replacement for Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao as the guy who would take the baton from those two fighters and become the next pay-per-view attraction. But with Broner’s loss to Maidana and his weak showings against Carlos Molina and Emmanuel Taylor, Broner is no longer seen as the next pay-per-view star by a lot of boxing fans. Instead of Broner being seen as the next PPV star, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is considered to be the guy who has the best chance of replacing Mayweather and Pacquiao in the future.

Adviser Al Haymon is the one who makes the fights for Broner, and it’s doubtful that he’ll let him fight Maidana again. If you look at the type of opponents that Haymon has been matching Broner up against, it would seem unlikely that he’ll him in a risky fight like that. It’s more likely that Haymon will continue the trend of matching Broner against beatable fringe contenders that he can actually beat.



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