By Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweather Jr. says he’d like to match former four division world champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (32-2, 24 KOs) against unbeaten Errol Spence Jr. (19-0, 16 KOs) and/or Shawn Porter in the near future.
Mayweather just finished successfully matching Broner against his fighter Ashley Theophane (39-7-1, 11 KOs) from Mayweather Promotions last Friday night at the DC Armory in Washington, DC. Broner won that fight by a 9th round knockout in a harder than expected fight.
“The next fight I’d like to put on…Errol Spence is about to fight. Mayweather Promotions would love to put on Errol Spence vs. Adrien Broner. That’s a great fight or Shawn Porter and Adrien Broner,” said Mayweather.
Broner called out Mayweather after the Theophane fight, and he wants that fight. Broner feels that he’s got a reason to want to fight Mayweather because of him talking about him in the media. However, Mayweather said that it’s a joke for Broner to be calling him out. He has no interest in making a comeback to fight Broner.
Some boxing fans might get the impression that Mayweather is trying to get Broner beat by offering fights against Spence and Porter. Broner was already beaten soundly by Porter last year in losing a 12 round decision. Spence is unbeaten, and he reportedly hurt Broner in a past sparring session and made him cry.
I don’t think Broner would want any part of fighting the hard hitting Spence because there would be very little margin for error for Broner. Spence is one of those fighters that will take you apart if he’s able to land his shots. Broner isn’t hard to hit, as we saw last Friday in his fight against Theophane. Broner won the fight, to be sure, but Theophane landed a lot of his best punches in the contest before he was eventually stopped in the 9th.
I don’t think Broner will ever accept a fight against a dangerous puncher like Spence. I see that as a fighter that Broner will never accept, and I don’t think his manager Al Haymon would make that fight either. Haymon manages both fighters, but I think he’ll keep them in separate directions.
Spence is a real welterweight with crushing power, and he’s definitely someone that will go far in the division. Broner is more of a pumped up super featherweight. He’s never going to be a legitimate welterweight in my view. It’s a credit to Broner that he’s able to move up in weight, but he doesn’t have enough hand speed or power to become a major player at 147.
Broner is good enough to beat a lot of the fighters in the 147lb division, but definitely not guys like Spence or Keith Thurman. We already saw Broner lose 11 of 12 rounds against Porter last year, so there’s no point in adding him to the list. I think Broner vs. Chris Algieri would be a 50-50 fight. It would be a great fight.
Broner will likely get beaten again at 147, and then move back down to 140 to resume competing in that weight class if he doesn’t wind up going to prison due to his legal problems in Cincinnati, Ohio. Broner has two legal charges against him from a January 21 incident. If he isn’t able to get out of that trouble with a plea bargain, it’s possible he could wind up going to trial and anything is possible.
Broner, 26, can turn down fights against the likes of Spence, Porter and Keith Thurman, but unless he can beat those guys, he’s not going to be able to find success at 147. About the best thing that Broner can hope for is somehow beating WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia, and then holding onto the WBC title for a year or two with careful match-making done by Haymon. Broner will do well if he can beat Garcia, and then milk the WBC title for a couple of years. However, he won’t ever turn into a Mayweather like star unless he proves that he can beat guys like Thurman, Porter, Spence, Tim Bradley and Garcia.
#2 IBF Spence has a fight this month on April 16 against #4 WBO Chris Algieri (21-2, 8 KOs) on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Other fights on the Spence-Algieri card are as follows: Krzysztof Glowacki vs. Steve Cunningham and Marcus Browne vs. Radivoje Kalajdzic.
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