Broner-Porter: Shawn not worried about 144lb catch-weight

By Boxing News - 05/23/2015 - Comments

porter#1By Dan Ambrose: Former IBF welterweight title holder Shawn Porter (25-1-1, 16 KOs) is totally unconcerned with having to melt down three extra pounds to make the 144 pound catch-weight for his fight next month on June 20th against former three division world champion Adrien Broner (30-1, 22 KOs) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The 27-year-old Porter isn’t surprised that Broner wanted a catch-weight for the fight because he figured that he would look to gain every advantage in the book in order to get an edge against him.

The Broner vs. Porter fight will be shown on NBC on Premier Boxing Champions, and that means a lot of boxing fans will get a chance to see it due to it being shown on free television. It’s a great opportunity for Porter to prove himself against one of the best fighters in the 140 pound division.

It’s also an excellent fight for Porter to win a lot of fans by him beating a big name. Porter wants to win this fight, and then move on capture one of the welterweight titles. Porter lost his IBF belt last year in losing a 12 round majority decision to Kell Brook in August of 2014.

“I think this is about him getting all the advantages that he thinks he can get,” Porter said via RingTV.com. “I’m not worried about losing the three pounds. All that means is that I’ll have to work a little bit harder. No problem.”

Broner, 25, is moving up in weight four pounds to take the fight against Porter. Broner briefly held the WBA welterweight title after beating champion Paulie Malignaggi by a 12 round split decision in June of 2013. However, only six months later, Broner lost his WBA title in getting beaten by Argentinian slugger Marcos Maidana in losing a 12 round decision in December of 2013.

Broner then wisely moved down to the 140 pound division where he has won his next three fights and looked very good. Therefore it’s kind of a surprise that Broner is moving up to 144 to face Porter, a fighter that started out his pro career as a junior middleweight.

While Broner and Porter are roughly the same height, Porter is the heavier guy of the two, and he’s likely to rehydrate up in weight to close to 160 by the time he enters the ring to face Broner. That means that Broner will be giving up a lot of size in the same way that he did in his fight against Maidana. That might not be a good thing for Broner.

It’s unknown what Broner’s adviser Al Haymon is waiting on before putting him in with a top light welterweight like Danny Garcia, Lamont Peterson, Ruslan Provodnikov, Terence Crawford, Lucas Matthsse and Viktor Postol. Broner should have been fighting guys like them a long time ago so that he could test his skills on them.



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