Mayweather vs. Broner: A Battle for “Bro” Supremacy

By j80caldwell - 11/13/2015 - Comments

floyd3By J Caldwell: Normally when two brothers battle on the streets (whether it’s vying for supremacy, or not) the end result is always the same—a kind of family feud of sort. Just so recently, the sport of boxing has had its own version of a family feud, causing some within the boxing world to think what could be brewing-up over at the TMT headquarters in Las Vegas.

Exactly who started the feud between Floyd “Money” Mayweather (49-0, 26 KOs) and his long-time protégé in Adrian Broner (31-2, 14 KOs) is unknown?

Perhaps better known to each other as “Big Bro” and “Lil Bro,” this pseudo family boxing feud appears to be all about who’s the “Baddest Bro.” Here’s an excerpt of a small but vicious Broner tirade thrown at Mayweather after he [Floyd] made a statement about Broner’s decision to take the fight with Khabib Allakhverdiev, the young Russian fighter he [Broner] just so recently won the vacant Lite Welterweight WBA title from.

“So with you to saying that, that you’d be ashamed, you wouldn’t call yourself a world champion, you the one disrespecting Al Haymon! And you said if I’m disrespecting Al Haymon then I’m disrespecting you…so you disrespecting yourself! How you want someone to respect you and you disrespecting yourself?!, Broner said.

For what it’s worth, the battle of choice words between Broner and Mayweather doesn’t appear to be all that bitter; nevertheless, the short-lived beef between two of boxing’s most colorful characters does seem to stir up an interesting dilemma: What would a Broner and Mayweather fight actually look like; and better yet, why should fans want to pay to see it?  

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I guess the best image you can conjure up, especially after watching Broner’s lackluster performances against two formidable foes in Marcos “El Chino” Maidiana and Shawn “Showtime” Porter is this: Adrien “The Problem” Broner tend to have problems with A-level fighters, which should immediately tell you what kind of fighter he tends to look great against; i.e., B and C level fighters. So what kind of fighter does that make Broner? After being let down by Broner in two major fights now, I’ve come to general conclusion that Broner is just going to be Broner, which includes looking sensational in some fights and terrible in others.

Nevertheless, the guy from Cincinnati (with the gift of gab) can sell a fight, which bodes well with the next question: Will fans dish-out close to $60.00 to want to see a Mayweather vs. Broner battle? Again, the answers lies with a certain kind of fan that would want to buy into this form of boxing family rivalry. Case in point: If Mayweather’s able to sell to the fans a genuine beef between he and his star pupil, then it could, very well, indeed, have some mass appeal to the greater boxing audience; namely, a younger causal African-American and Latino fan base; which, of course he’ll need to convince, through the fight’s buildup marketing campaign, that there’s actually some bad blood between himself and Broner.  Otherwise, both causal and diehard fans alike could, in theory, be turned off to the event all together.

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