Ashley Theophane ready to beat Adrien Broner

By Boxing News - 03/21/2016 - Comments

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By Jeff Aranow: In less than two weeks from now, underdog Ashley Theophane (39-6-1, 11 KOs) will be taking part in the biggest fight of his 13-year-year pro career when he faces WBA Super light welterweight champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (31-2, 23 KOs) on April 1 at the DC Armory in Washington, DC.

Like in many of his fights during his career, the 35-year-old Theophane finds himself the underdog in this fight against the 26-year-old Broner. That doesn’t bother Theophane, because he feels that he’s better than Broner, and he’s ready to beat him and take his WBA title.

“This is the world championship. A boxer’s career is about to reach the pinnacle,” Theophane said. “This is the pinnacle for me. I was always one of those fighters that was always the underdog. Nothing was ever expected of me. 10 years for me to be on my own, and for Floyd to spot me and say ‘I’m going to give you that chance.’ Three years later, I have my biggest fight of my career. Now he’s got me a great fight. Adrien is a four-weight world champion. He’s done marvelous things at 26-years-old, but he’s a man I can beat. For me to beat him, I have to be on my best. I’m the underdog again. It’s nothing new. I’m ready for fight night on April 1st. I will be victorious,” said Theophane.

Broner is pretty cocky as he goes into this fight, as he doesn’t believe that Theophane has any chance of pulling off the upset. He’s not going to even entertain the idea that he could lose this fight or struggle to win. Broner just sees Theophane as not being in the same league as him. The fact that the four sanctioning bodies don’t think enough of Theophane to rank him in their top 15 backs up Broner’s belief that he doesn’t rate for this fight.

Theophane has had some problems off and on during his career in losing to Pablo Cesar Cano, Danny Garcia, Darren Hamilton, Ali Oubaali, Oscar Milkitas and Judex Meemea. However, Theophane is peaking at the right time with his career in winning his last six fights since 2013. Theophane is truly at his best at this point in his caeer, and all the things that took place earlier don’t matter. Theophane is taking everything he’s learned from his 13-year pro career and he’s going to be using that against Broner on April 1.

What we don’t know is how well Theophane will be able to handle the size and power of Broner. Theophane hasn’t been fighting a lot of larger fighters during his career. His opponents have been more or less the same size as him. In the case of Broner, he’s clearly a boiled down welterweight who is fighting in the 140lb division out of necessity.

Broner tried to fight in the 147l division, but he didn’t have the talent to make big things happen in that weight class. Broner did briefly hold a world title at 147, but he quickly lost it to the bigger, stronger Marcos Maidana. Broner was recently beaten again at 147 in a loss to Shawn Porter last June.



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