Broner: The networks won’t pay enough for Danny Garcia fight

By Boxing News - 01/28/2016 - Comments

broner5456By Dan Ambrose: WBA light welterweight champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (31-2, 23 KOs) says the boxing world wants to see him and WBC welterweight champion Danny “Swift” Garcia (32-0, 18 KOs) to face each other in a huge fight, but the networks won’t pay the kind of money he wants to make the fight a reality. Broner, 26, says he’ll fight Garcia at some point in the future but only if he gets the right price for the fight. He’s not going to take the fight for the small money.

It’s too bad that a Broner-Garcia fight can’t get made right now because it would be a fantastic fight for the summer. The WBC ordered Garcia to defend his title against #1 WBC Amir Khan next, but that fight might not take place because Khan is in negotiations with IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook for a fight that could take place on June 4 at Wembley Stadium in London, UK.

This means that Garcia will be free and available for someone like Broner to fight him. It’s not likely that Garcia’s manager Al Haymon is going to match him against anyone good for his first title defense if Khan is unavailable. If that fight doesn’t take place, then Garcia will probably fight safe fringe level contender ranked near the bottom of the WBC’s rankings.

I’d be very surprised if boxing fans ever show a lot of interest in seeing Broner fight Garcia. They’re both seen as paper champions, and Garcia’s popularity seems to be slowly eroding rather than increasing with every fight. Garcia hasn’t faced a really good fighter since his fight against Lucas Matthysse in 2013, and it just looks like he’s intentionally being matched against weak opponents so that he can avoid taking a loss.

Broner is reportedly close to making a deal to defend his WBA 140lb title against British fighter Ashley Theophane for April or May in a fight that will be televised on Showtime. This would be a sick mismatch. Theophane isn’t even ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies.

Last October, Broner defeated Khabib Allakhverdiev by a 12th round knockout to win the vacant WBA light welterweight title. Broner, the WBA and his management were criticized for him fighting Allakhverdiev for the WBA title because the Russian fighter hadn’t fought in over a year and was coming off of a 12 round decision loss to Jessie Vargas in his last fight. Broner was also coming off of a defeat of his own to Shawn Porter in June of last year. The fact that the WBA was letting two fighters coming off of a loss fight for their vacant WBA title, it just made them look bad for allowing that fight to take place.



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