By Scott Gilfoid: WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner (25-0, 21 KO’s) says he feels comfortable in this weight class and he doesn’t have any plans on moving up in weight to look for bigger fights and much bigger money at 140 and 147 for the time being.
Broner said to Dan Rafael at espn.com “I just moved up to this weight….I make the weight comfortably, so I’m going to stay here for a lot of good fights that I still can have at 135 pounds. So, I’m going to flush out this lightweight division and then we can go up to the light welterweight and crush their dreams.”
Broner feels there are still a lot of big fights at 135 starting with his bout against former WBA light welterweight champion Gavin Rees next month on February 16th. Broner wants to beat Rees, then beat WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns. After Broner beats Burns it’s going to get kind of tricky trying to find big name opponents because frankly there aren’t any big names in the division.
The best that Broner can do after the Burns fight, which isn’t a big fight either, is to look to take on IBF champ Miguel Vazquez and then the winner of the Richard Abril vs. Sharif Bogere fight. That’s basically it. If Broner wins those four fights he’ll have effectively cleaned out the division.
The only thing remaining for Broner at that point would be to wait around to see if Yurirokis Gamboa will move up to lightweight. If he does then that’s a good fight to take before Broner moves up to light welterweight. Presuming that Broner does fight Gamboa after beating those four fighters, we’re talking about mid-2014 before Broner will be done with the lightweight division.
He’ll be close to his mid-20s by then and it’ll definitely be a good time for him to move up to light welterweight or welterweight. I don’t see the point of Broner sticking around to fight those give fights because the only one that has any real meaning significance to American boxing fans is a fight between him and Gamboa.
That’s the only fight that will interest fans because Vazquez, Burns, Abril, Bogere and Rees have no fan base to speak of in the U.S. Even Gamboa doesn’t have much of any fan base in the U.S., but at least U.S hardcore boxing fans would see this as an interesting fight to see compared to the other mismatches Broner would be involved with if he faces the other guys.
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