(Photo credit: Idris Erba/Mayweather Promotions) By Dan Ambrose: At this point in Adrien Broner’s career it’s not looking like he’s ever going to become a pay-per-view attraction like his mentor Floyd Mayweather Jr., or like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Miguel Cotto.
Even before Broner’s loss to Marcos Maidana in 2013, Broner’s fights lacked the domination a superb talent that you see from pay-per-view headliner. Floyd Mayweather Jr. believes that the 25-year-old Broner will make it to the next level and become a PPV star in the future, but he thinks it’s going to take some time for him to achieve that status.
Mayweather didn’t become a PPV fighter until he was 30-years-old, and he was blessed by having Oscar De La Hoya fight him to get him to the next level to become a PPV fighter. Unless Broner chooses to fight the likes of Canelo, he’s not going to have a big name that can get him to the PPV status.
“He’ll [Broner] will be a pay-per-view star,” Mayweather said. “This era of boxing is about Mayweather. I’ve been around for a long time. As far as Adrien Broner, he’s super talented, but everything takes time. I love Adrien Broner. Shawn Porter is not an easy task.”
Shawn Porter (25-1-1, 16 KOs) has a very good chance of making sure that Broner never becomes a PPV star by beating him in their fight this Saturday night on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The fight is at a catch-weight of 144 pounds with a rehydration clause of just 10 pounds at 154, so it’s going to be difficult for Porter to ruin Broner’s dream of becoming a PPV fighter, but it’s definitely possible. I think a loss for Broner in this fight will pretty much do the trick in terms of making sure that he never becomes a pay-per-view fighter.
Even in five years from now, I think the boxing fans won’t have forgotten Broner’s losses to Marcos Maidana and Porter. The thing is if Broner can’t even beat the likes of Porter and Maidana, then that suggests that he’ll be taking other defeats in the future to guys like Viktor Postol, Lucas Matthysse, Danny Garcia and Kell Brook.
If Broner stays at 140 and only fights the guys that he’s capable of beating, like we’ve seen in his fights against Emmanuel Taylor, John Molina and Carlos Molina, then that will guarantee that he never becomes a star because he can’t rise to stardom fighting those kinds of guys. Broner needs to fight guys like Matthysse, Garcia, Lamont Peterson, Postol, Keith Thurman, Kell Brook, Canelo, Miguel Cotto, and Amir Khan for him to become a major star.
Broner needs to beat those fighters, not just fight them. I don’t know if Broner can beat any of those fighters. He’s just not that good. At super featherweight and lightweight, Broner was a good fighter mostly due to his size advantage over his opposition, but at light welterweight and welterweight, he’s very beatable against even mediocre opposition.
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