by Dan Ambrose: Superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr. says he thought it was a real joke when former four division world champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (32-2, 24 KOs) called him out last Friday night after his 9th round TKO win over Mayweather Promotions fighter Ashley Theophane (39-7-1, 11 KOs) at the DC Armory in Washington, DC.
Mayweather doesn’t take the 26-year-old Broner seriously. Mayweather thinks Broner should try and have a good life after the sport. That’s what he feels is important.
Broner will reportedly be turning himself into the Cincinnati police department on Monday due to there being two outstanding warrants out on him. Broner is wanted for an alleged assault and battery as well as a robbery stemming from an incident that took place on January 21 of this year in Cincinnati behind a bowling alley. It’s unknown what the outcome will be from that. Hopefully, Broner doesn’t have to do prison time from this, because that would potentially halt his career depending on how much time he has to spend behind bars.
“That was the biggest joke of the night actually,” Mayweather said to Fighthype about Broner calling him out. “What’s important for Adrien is not just winning. Life after boxing. That’s what’s very important. We’ll see what the future holds for Adrien Broner. I wish him nothing but the best,” said Mayweather.
It’s hard for a talented fighter like Mayweather to take Broner seriously because he’s not been dominating the competition that he’s been facing. Instead of Broner calling out Mayweather, which is comical at this point, he needs to be calling out the fighters that beat him in the past in Marcos Maidana and Shawn Porter.
It’s obviously too late for Broner to be trying to get a fight against Maidana at this point, because that ship has sailed now that the Argentinian slugger has pretty much left the sport after his two fights against Mayweather. But there’s nothing stopping Broner from calling out Porter to try and avenge his loss to him from last year in June.
Broner was beaten worse by Porter than he was by Maidana. The Broner-Maidana fight was slightly close despite Broner being knocked down twice in the fight. But the Broner vs. Porter fight was very one-sided, and it’s hard to believe Broner didn’t push hard to get a rematch with Porter after that loss. That’s the type of defeat that makes it very important for the beaten fighter to try and avenge the loss. Porter was game for a rematch, but he says there was no mutual interest for them to fight again.
“I grew out of the weight class, but tonight I handled my business and that’s all that matters,” said Broner to the media after his fight against Theophane last night. “He made noise every time I hit him, like I was sinking into him. He came to fight, but from the first round, he knew that I was everything they said I was, a problem. After the first round and I had hurt him, I came back and told Floyd, ‘I’m going to stop him.’”
“If he do fight, he won’t be 50-0,” said Broner about a fight against Mayweather.
It’s true that Broner did grow out of the 140lb weight class, but that’s not because he’s put on more muscles. It’s more because Broner has been eating a lot, and getting heavy in between fights. If Broner does that kind of thing in between fights at welterweight, he’s going to soon have problems making weight for that division as well.
If Broner eats himself out of the 147lb division, then his career will effectively be over unless he can drag welterweights up to junior middleweight to fight. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez has been able to extend his career by dragging smaller fighters up in weight to fight him. Canelo isn’t fighting guys his own size like Gennady Golovkin. He’s fighting Amir Khan from the welterweight division.
“I’m a man, but at the end of the day, somebody that I look up to, someone that I admire took the chance to do an interview and talk bad about me. I’m a man – Floyd has got to see me,” said Broner about Mayweather last night. “I come from nothing. I’m talking about water and Cornflakes. And I would never let a man disrespect me like that. So you gotta see me. I don’t care if we’re sparring or if we’re fighting, let’s get it on.”
This so-called disrespect that Mayweather showed Broner was simply him pointing out his disappointment in him after seeing video of Broner throwing money on the ground recently inside a Walmart store. Mayweather pointed out that the people inside the store probably didn’t even know who Broner was. Mayweather feels that Broner’s behavior didn’t help him.
It’s actually not surprising that Broner is finally calling Mayweather out for a fight.
I knew that Broner would eventually ask Mayweather for a payday fight, and it’s finally come about. Broner is in a situation where he needs a Mayweather fight at this point in his career, because things are looking very murky for Broner right now. He’s got his legal issues that potentially could take him out of commission for a long, long time, and his chances of finding success at welterweight are limited. Broner will only do well so long as he’s matched with extra care by his adviser Al Haymon.
Broner is in a situation where he only has one option available to him, and that’s to fight WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia if he wants to try and win a world title. Mayweather doesn’t sound like he’s going to throw Broner a bone by giving him a big money fight. Broner could fight some of Top Rank fighters Jessie Vargas or Terence Crawford. Their promoter Bob Arum would likely jump at the chance to make either of those fights happen. However, Haymon will probably not agree to put Broner in with those fighters. Those would be tough fights for Broner, and I think he would lose at l;east one of them if not both. Crawford beats Broner easily in my view. I think Vargas would have a 50-50 chance at beating Broner.
Comments are closed.