By Scott Gilfoid: Mike Stafford, the trainer for talented lightweight contender Adrien Broner (24-0, 21 KO’s), sees Broner as the soon to be replacement for Floyd Mayweather Jr. as boxing’s number #1 fighter. I think Stafford is right.
If Broner beats WBC lightweight champion Antonio DeMarco (28-2-1, 21 KO’s) on November 17th, Broner will have cemented the fact that he’s the best fighter at lightweight, and he then can move up and knock off a couple of big names at light welterweight and welterweight. I think Broner might be four good fights away from taking over top spot as the best fighter in boxing.
It’ll have to be really good fighters, and not the kinds of guys that Broner has been blowing away lately. Unfortunately, there’s no talented fighters at lightweight other than Broner and DeMarco, so Broner is going to have to move up to light welterweight after he dispatches with DeMarco on November 17th.
Stafford said to Bleacherreport.com “I don’t see why not, ain’t nobody else got a record like him—24 wins with 20-something knockouts, you know what I’m saying. In his first three pro years he hasn’t been touched.”
Broner has been simply amazing since he turned pro in 2008. There’s been non one that can give him a hard fight. The closest that he came to having a tough fight was against Daniel Ponce De Leon last year, but even in that fight Broner totally schooled him.
Mayweather was smart to keep moving up in weight during the early portion of his career. He wasn’t satisfied with simply defending his WBC super featherweight title and he subsequently gave it up after three years as the champion. Mayweather then moved up to lightweight and picked up the WBC lightweight strap. My point is Mayweather kept moving up until he got to welterweight. This in turn made Mayweather a more popular fighter because he was winning belts in each division he’d stop off at.
Broner has to keep moving forward because the last thing he wants to do is invest a big amount of time defending the WBC lightweight strap after he beats DeMarco next month.
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