Theophane possible for Adrien Broner’s next fight

By Boxing News - 10/05/2015 - Comments

LR_BRONER VS ALLAKHVERDIEV-FIGHT NIGHT-3423(Photo credit: Stephanie Trapp/SHOWTIME) By Scott Gilfoid: It looks like WBA light welterweight champion Adrien Broner (31-2, 23 KOs) will take an easy title defense for his first defense of his newly won WBA 140lb title. If the World Boxing Association will let him, Broner could be facing 2nd tier fighter Ashley Theophane (39-6-1, 11 KOs) in his first defense.

Theophane is one of Broner’s close friend Floyd Mayweather Jr’s stable fighters in his Mayweather Promotions’ stable, and Mayweather previously told Theophane that he believed he could get him a fight against Broner if Theophane won his last fight against Steve Upsher Chambers, which he did last month in beating Chambers by a 10 round unanimous decision on his undercard on September 12th.

“Floyd told me at the weekend he is working on a title shot for me,” Theophane said to the dailystar.co.uk. “The plan is to fight Broner. I had a good talk with Floyd over the weekend. He told me he is going to get me a world title shot.

I don’t see Theophane in any of the top 15 rankings, so it might be a problem for him to get a title shot against Broner. So if a fight between Broner and Theophane is to take place, the WBA will either just need to let the fight take place regardless of him not being ranked in the top 15, or they’ll need to give him a top 15 ranking.

I’m not sure what the WBA’s rules are for their champions in terms of them fighting top 15 contenders. It’s possible that they don’t mind that their champions fight 2nd tier fighters like Theophane. After all, we are talking about an organization that has three champions in some of their weight divisions. The WBA might be fine with Broner fighting a non-top 15 ranked fighter like Theophane.

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Broner gave a good indication last Saturday night after his impressive 12th round knockout win over Khabib Allakhverdiev that he plans on fighting whoever he wants to fight. In other words, Broner’s not going to be told who he fights or has to fight. I don’t know if that’s going to work with the WBA or not.

They may insist that he at least fight his mandatory challenger every now and then as the WBA champion, but who knows? They might be happy just having Broner as their champion because he’ll bring in good sanctioning fees money.
Broner said this last Saturday about his plans on fighting the guys he wants to fight:

“I’m going to fight who I want to fight and when I want to fight them. You know, they say my big bro, the on, the only Floyd Mayweather, he say he got a fighter that he feels like he can beat me. I think his name is Ashley, but if that is true, this is what you do, big bro, because bosses talk to bosses. You put Ashley on one of your private jets, bring him to come see me.”

It won’t be much of a fight because Theophane is pretty limited. In the last two years, Theophane has lost to Darren Hamilton and Pablo Cesar Cano. Mayweather has Theophane in his stable, but I don’t see him as being talented like some of the other champions/contenders in the division. I believe that the following fighters are MUCH better than Theophane: Viktor Postol, Lamont Peterson, Amir Iman, Terence Crawford, Ruslan Provodnikov, Chris Algieri, Humberto Soto, Antonio Orozco, Lucas Matthysse, Felix Diaz, Khabib Allakhverdiev, Jose Benavidez, Mauricio Herrera, Thomas Dulorme, Omar Figueroa, Ricky Burns, Lenny Zappavigna, and Jack Catterall. This is just a short list. I could add another 15 names to the list that I believe are better fighters than Theophane. But this isn’t what it’s about. Broner says he’s going to fight whoever he wants, and I believe he’s serious about that. It means that he’s going to fight guys like Theophane as long as Showtime or his adviser Al Haymon blesses it for his Premier Boxing Champions fight cards.



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