(Photo credit: Stephanie Trapp/SHOWTIME) By Allan Fox: This Saturday night fans will get a chance to see a fighter whose career is in freefall in Adrien Broner (30-2, 22 KOs) being given a gift opportunity to win a paper title by the World Boxing Association against Russian Khabib Allakhverdiev (19-1, 9 KOs) on Showtime at the U.S. Bank Arena, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The WBA is letting Broner fight #4 WBA Allakhverdiev for their vacant WBA 140lb title rather than a higher ranked fighter like #1 Jose Benavidez or #3 Amir Iman.
Two years ago, Broner was supposed to be the fighter that was going to grab the baton from Floyd Mayweather Jr. to become the guy that carried the sport on his shoulders for the next decade or so.
Broner had the charisma and possessed the credentials to replace Mayweather after winning three world titles by the time he was just 24-years-old. However, losses to Marcos Maidana and Shawn Porter in the last two years has done major damage to Broner’s career.
There’s no escaping how bad Broner looked in those fights. He looked like a fighter who didn’t know what he was doing in the ring, and he didn’t seem to be getting any help in his corner by trainer Mike Stafford. Broner has thus far not shown interest in getting a trainer to replace Stafford so that he could get help in fixing all the flaws in his game.
It’s pretty clear at this point that Broner won’t be the guy to take over Mayweather’s spot as the No.1 fighter in boxing. Broner is so far removed that level it’s not even possible to consider him. The highest that Broner can go right now is to beat Allakhverdiev to become a paper champion at 140, and not the guy that is considered to be the best fighter in the division.
Recently, Broner decided that he wasn’t going to help promote his fight against Allakhverdiev by speaking to the media at press conferences or doing any interviews. This is something that Broner’s mentor Mayweather has never done before.
Mayweather always realized that he couldn’t cut off the press because it was too important for his career. But in this case, Broner is hurting himself by sabotaging his career by not promoting his own fight against Allakhverdiev.
Broner was supposed to play a major part in promoting his fight with Allakhverdiev, but he’s chosen not to help out. Showtime can’t be happy about Broner’s decision to do this because they’re paying him a great deal of money to televise his fights on their network.
It’s unclear what a win for Broner over Allakhverdiev will do for his career. Winning the WBA title isn’t a big deal because the organization has three world title belts that they hand out. A win over Allakhverdiev won’t be a big deal because he’s not seen as being as good as the top light welterweights like Lucas Matthysse, Terence Crawford, Lamont Peterson, Amir Iman, Viktor Postol, Humberto Soto, Antonio Orozco, and Ruslan Provodnikov.
Beating Allakhverdiev just means that Broner beat a very beatable ex-champion to win the WBA strap. Allakhverdiev lost his last fight to Jessie Vargas, a fighter that was easily beaten by Tim Bradley last June.
Broner get his career in the right direction if he gets a new trainer, and starts fighting at a higher level against better opposition. I’m not sure if he adviser Al Haymon will make the move of matching Broner against better opponents, because bad things have happened in the past when he’s put Broner in with good fighters. Broner doesn’t have the game plan or the work rate to beat the better fighters at 140 and 147.
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