By Allan Fox: Promoter Floyd Mayweather Jr. says there’s a blueprint on how to defeat WBA light welterweight champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (31-2, 23 KOs). Mayweather’s fighter Ashley Theophane (39-6-1, 11 KOs) will be fighting Broner on April 1 on Premier Boxing Champions on Spike TV from the DC Armory in Washington, DC.
The fight will take place as long as Broner isn’t arrested for his warrants that are out on him from the Cincinnati police for the reported incident that allegedly took place on January 21 outside of a bowling alley in Broner’s hometown.
Mayweather has obviously been coaching his fighter Theophane to get him ready for the Broner fight by telling him about Broner’s weaknesses that he exploits. Mayweather thinks that the 35-year-old Theophane has a similar fighting style as Marcos Maidana, a fighter that defeated Broner in 2013.
“What I try to tell Ashley is this, is there a blueprint on how to beat Adrien? Absolutely,” said Mayweather to Fighthype.com. “The thing is this, Ashley, his style is similar to a Maidana. One thing we know, we know Ashley is no quitter, so he’s not going to quit. He’s not the kind of guy who’s going to have any excuses.”
Theophane definitely has the ability to fight like Maidana when he wants to. In looking at Theophane’s fights against Steven Upsher Chambers, Mahonri Montes, and Miguel Zuniga. The one thing that sets Maidana apart from Theophane, besides his superior punching power, was his ability to fight in close, throw constant power shots, and not just hold.
Theophane does a lot of holding for some reason. It’s needless on his part because he’s got a good fight hand when he lets it go. His left hook isn’t as good as Maidana, and he doesn’t seem to use it very much. In his last three fights, Theophane used a lot of movement and made those fights harder than they should have been.
“Adrien won a world title because it’s all about timing and it’s all about putting fighters in certain positions, and Al Haymon is the best at putting certain fighters in certain positions and making sure the right opponent is chosen,” said Mayweather about Broner.
So it sounds like Mayweather is saying that the reason why Broner recently won a world title was because of the skillful match-making that his adviser Al Haymon did in matching him against a very beatable fighter in Khabib Allakhverdiev instead of one of the difficult light welterweights like Ruslan Provodnikov, Terence Crawford or Viktor Postol. Those would have been very difficult fights for Broner, and he might have ended up losing.
Theophane will need to follow the blueprint that Maidana created in his win over Broner three years ago. This means that Theophane is going to need to focus on throwing punches rather than on holding like he did in his last three fights. Theophane will not beat Broner if he throws a punch or two and immediately looks to hold him.
Theophane must let his hands go and continue to fight while in close the way that Maidana fought Broner. I’m not sure that Theophane is capable of fighting for three minutes of every round like Maidana. It would be a huge chance to Theophane’s fighting style if he were to adopt Maidana’s blueprint for the Broner fight.
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