By Dan Ambrose: After sitting out of the ring for the past four months following his closer than expected win over Emmanuel Taylor last September, former three division world champion Adrien Broner (29-1, 22 KOs) says he’s ready to get back inside the ring to slaughter somebody.
Broner, 25, is said to be returning to the ring on March 7th against an opponent still to be named in his hometown or Cincinnati, Ohio.
”I know YALL ready to see me slaughter somebody…..#AboutBillions,” Broner said on his twitter.
Broner needs to improve dramatically over his last performance against Taylor, because he barely won that fight by the scores of 116-111, 115-112 and 116-111. This was a fringe contender that Broner was facing in that fight, not a top five talent.
It was really a disappointing fight for Broner, because these are the type of guys that he’s supposed to either blow out with a fast knockout or at least dominate by a lopsided decision. Broner did neither, and that’s cause for worry.
This is the same Taylor that Chris Algieri easily beat by a lopsided 10 round decision last year in February. Algieri made it look easy in outclassing Taylor, yet Broner pretty much went life and death with Taylor.
Broner is currently ranked #3 WBA, #4 WBC, #10 IBF in the light welterweight division, and that means he should be getting a world title shot at some point. He says he’ll be fighting four times in 2015, and presumably one of those fights will be for a world title. But if Broner intends on facing WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia in 2015, then I see him going down to defeat.
Broner doesn’t match up with Garcia because he doesn’t have the work rate, speed, chin or power to take the kinds of blows that Garcia will be nailing him with in this fight.
Broner’s best chance of winning a world title is to go after IBF champ Lamont Peterson. However, if Peterson faces Garcia this year in a unification fight, then Broner will be out in the cold without a chance to fight for a title. He’ll have to wait until Garcia vacates the IBF, WBA and WBC titles before he can get a shot against someone that he can possibly beat.
At 140, Broner doesn’t have the talent to slaughter anyone in this weight class. If he couldn’t slaughter little Carlos Molina, a fighter that Khan slaughtered, then that suggests that Broner isn’t cut out for the division. He’s probably better off going on a diet and moving back down to lightweight because he didn’t carry his power up with him when moved up in weight to 140 and 147.
Broner needs to watch his weight carefully and move back down to try and make the most of things with his career. If he can dominate at lightweight for 4-5 years, he could still become a pay-per-view attraction, because boxing fans will forget about how average he was at 140 and 147. But the longer he stays in those weight classes the less likely he’ll be able to get back down to 135 and have a real career.
Comments are closed.