By Dan Ambrose: With Adrien Broner (24-0, 20 KO’s) coming in at 147 pounds for his fight against Vincente Escobedo (26-4, 15 KO’s) last Saturday night, I think the 22-year-old Broner should skip the 135 pound [lightweight] division entirely and campaign instead at 140 lbs in the light welterweight division.

Let’s be honest here, Broner is basically a light welterweight now, and he’ll still likely have problems making weight even with him moving up five pounds to the 135 pound division.

There isn’t any real names at lightweight for Broner to fight, and it’s probably worse than it was for him at super featherweight in that department. The best fighters at lightweight are these guys: Antonio DeMarco, Ricky Burns, Miguel Vazquez, Kevin Mitchell, Jorge Linares, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Hank Lundy and Miguel Acosta.

Unless Broner can get a fight with Gamboa, which I seriously doubt, then Broner needs to move up to 140 so that he can hunt down bigger fights and not struggle to make weight. If you think Broner has seen the last of his problems making weight than you’re kidding yourself. 135 is going to be a hard weight for Broner to make and I can see him failing to make that weight in a fight or two.

If Broner can’t get DeMarco or Gamboa for his next fight then he should just move straight up to light welterweight and go after someone like Mattysse. That would be a good fight because Broner is one half inch taller than Matthysse at 5’7″, and he’s got a two inch reach advantage over him. Broner is going go wind up at light welterweight sooner or later anyway, so he might as well get it over with as soon as possible so that he can get fights against guys that boxing fans care about. Broner needs to use his time wisely and not waste it trying to get fights against guys that the casual boxing fans have no interest in seeing.