Broner vs. Mayweather Jr. in 2016?

By Boxing News - 10/09/2015 - Comments

Image: Broner vs. Mayweather Jr. in 2016?(Photo credit: Stephanie Trapp/SHOWTIME) By Allan Fox: We could be seeing a fight between newly crowned WBA light welterweight champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (31-2, 23 KOs) and Floyd Mayweather Jr. (49-0, 26 KOs) in 2016. According to Michael Woods from RingTV, he’s hearing rumors that Mayweather will be coming back in 2016 to fight the 26-year-old Broner. The fight makes a lot of sense for both of those fighters, because it’s a potentially big money fight.

“Woodsy, I’m hearing rumblings…They are thinking Adrien Broner versus Floyd Mayweather if and when Floyd decides to get bored of being the world-traveler, an Instagram Hall of Famer. AB vs. TBE,” an unnamed source told Michael Woods of RingTV.com.

It’s a win-win fight for Mayweather because Broner doesn’t present the same kind of danger that fighters like Amir Khan, Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia would present to him. Some boxing fans think that the real reason why Mayweather retired was because he would have pretty much had to have faced the likes of Thurman, Porter, Khan or Garcia if he had continued his career after the Berto mismatch.

It would have made Mayweather looked cowardly in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans if he had continued his career and not fought at least one or two of those fighters. But by coming back in 2016 to fight Broner, Mayweather has an opponent that he can clearly beat without any problems, and scoop up a lot of money in the process.

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Broner copies Mayweather with his fighting style, but he’s nowhere near as good as him. Mayweather could solve Broner’s elementary shoulder roll. Mayweather could beat a fighter like Broner with his eyes closed.

Mayweather just did Andre Berto a big favor by giving him a fight last September in Berto’s first and likely last big money fight of his career. Broner’s career has been pretty rocky lately with him losing 2 out of his last 6 fights. Right now, it’s possible that Broner will never evolve to become a pay-per-view fighter.

Broner’s talent isn’t at the level where he’ll be able to make that leap to become a PPV attraction. But if Mayweather gives Broner a huge break by fighting him, Broner will get a career high payday and he might be able to get more popular in the process.

Broner vs. Mayweather would likely bring in a respectable amount of PPV buys if they could convince the boxing public that the fight was on the level and not just some kind of farce between friends. Mayweather’s last fight against Berto looked to a lot of boxing fans that he was just doing Berto a favor by giving him a fight that he clearly didn’t deserve.

The whole endeavor did nothing more than make Mayweather look really bad in the eyes of a lot of fans and media members. A fight against Broner might work though if Mayweather lets Broner loose to market the fight. We couldn’t see the same childish behavior from Broner again where he doesn’t speak to the media again like he did in the buildup for his last fight against the little known Russian Khabib Allakhverdiev.

Mayweather would need to get a guarantee from Broner ahead of time that he’s not going to pull his no speaking to the media bit again because if he does, then the PPV buys for a Mayweather-Broner fight will likely be as low as the rumored PPV buys for the Mayweather-Berto mismatch.



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