By Chris Williams: WBA World light welterweight champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (32-2, 23 KOs) says that Michael Koncz, the adviser for Filipino superstar Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs), called him recently to discuss a potential fight between him and Pacquiao for April.
Broner is very interested in that fight, and says he’s waiting to hear back from Koncz.
Broner vs. Pacquiao would be a nice fight for HBO pay-per-view if could be made. The 5’7″ Adrien Broner would be like a mini-Floyd Mayweather Jr., and it would give Pacquiao the chance to beat him and possibly setup a second fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr, depending on how badly he defeats Broner.
If it were a total wipe-out like Pacquiao’s past wins over the likes of Ricky Hatton and Chris Algieri, then the chances of Mayweather coming out of retirement to avenge Broner’s loss would increase.
“I hear they want me to fight Pacquiao next,” Broner said to Fighthype. “Michael Koncz actually called me. We’re waiting to hear from him.”
When asked if he would be willing to fight Pacquiao in the Philippines, Broner said “Hell, nah. [expletive], I got a name too, and if you ask me our name is damn near at the same level. I love fighting southpaws, man. Just check my record. He’s [Pacquiao] a great guy. It would be a hell of a fight, a young rising star [Broner] against an elite Hall of Famer on his way out. I can’t wait to send him home to the Philippines to go back to be Governor. You can’t put it past nobody. This is boxing. It only takes one shot,” Broner said.
What is interesting here is that Koncz is making moves to setup Pacquiao’s next fight rather than the 84-year-old Arum. It makes you wonder whether everything is going smoothly between Pacquiao and Arum. We saw how in Pacquiao’s last fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr., it was Pacquiao who did the heavy lifting to make that fight a reality by him meeting with Mayweather at a basketball game to discuss a fight between them. Pacquiao made the move instead of Arum. Now it looks like Koncz is doing the heavy lifting to discuss a Pacquiao-Broner fight for April instead of Arum.
A fight between Broner and Pacquiao would be a great fight for Pacquiao to retire on if that is truly, what he wants to do. It would a fight where he could go out with a bang and it would likely help his political career as well. Pacquiao-Broner is a much better fight than if Pacquiao were to fight one of Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters like Crawford or Bradley. Those were the only real choices that Pacquiao had.
Pacquiao already fought Bradley twice, and beat him soundly last year. There would be no point at all in a third fight. As for Crawford, he does not have a large fan base outside of his home state of Nebraska. If Pacquiao fought Crawford, he would be doing Arum a big favor because it is not a fight that would likely bring in many pay-per-view buys on HBO.
At best, it might bring in 400,000 buys in my view. I know some of the hardcore boxing fans liked the idea of Pacquiao fighting Crawford, but it is still not a fight that would likely have done well. Crawford does not have a lot charisma like Broner, and I think there is no comparison between the two fighters appeal with the boxing pubic. Broner has a way of attracting a lot of interest in his fights.
Broner recently defeated Khabib Allakhverdiev by a 12th round knockout last October to capture the vacant WBA 140lb title. It was a good performance from the 26-year-old Broner, who showed that he had fixed the flaws in his game from his previous fight against Shawn Porter. Broner’s low punch output was the cause of that loss. However, against Allakhverdiev, he was a 100% better in throwing many more punches.
Broner’s name recently popped up as one of the candidates for Pacquiao’s final fight of his career on April 9 next year. Pacqiuiao’s elderly promoter Bob Arum had been saying that Pacquiao would announce his next opponent on the December 11 Top Rank card on truTV. However, Pacquiao reportedly was not ready to make his choice at that time. Arum was planning on Pacquiao selecting one of the three candidates – Terence Crawford, Tim Bradley or Amir Khan – that he had selected for him to choose from for his April 9 fight. There were rumors that Arum wanted Pacquiao to fight Crawford
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