(Photo credit: Suzanne Teresa/Premier Boxing Champions) By Dan Ambrose: After making the catch-weight of 144 pounds earlier on Friday, Shawn Porter (25-1-1, 16 KOs) is reportedly already rehydrated to 153 pounds, and he still have the entire night and all of tomorrow afternoon to continue to rehydrate for his fight against former three division world champion Adrien Broner (30-1, 22 KOs) on Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
That’s obviously not good news for Broner, because it means his catch-weight handicap, which was designed to weaken Porter enough to make him vulnerable, has failed. Porter could wind up rehydrated to 160+ by the time the fight starts tomorrow night.
That means Broner would be facing Porter at full strength and looking to climb all over him to try and take him out of there.
“So Kenny Porter says Shawn is feeling really good and at 153 pds. Might have to flip flop like John Kerry and change my pick #boxing,” Steve Kim said on his Twitter.
Broner would have been better off fighting Porter at the full weight of 147 pounds for his fight tomorrow night because the only thing that Broner succeeded with the catch-weight is making himself look bad.
Catch-weights do work to weaken fighters, but it’s usually the older fighters that it impacts, not the younger ones like Porter. When a fighter gets to a certain age, they don’t do well when fighting at catch-weights. But the younger ones are able to handle the catch-weights without any problems and fight at full strength.
Broner just made himself look silly in the minds of the boxing public because Porter has made it a point to let the boxing writers know about the catch-weight, and it just looks like Broner was afraid to fight Porter at the full weight for the division.
If Porter comes into the fight 160 or better, he’s going to have a very good chance of beating Broner. We already know that Broner’s mobility is incredibly poor, and he doesn’t move well enough to get away from his opponents that pressure him. If Porter doesn’t have stamina problems tomorrow night, he could turn Broner into another Paulie Malignaggi or Devon Alexander. Broner might be wishing that he had picked another guy to tangle with instead of Porter.
Porter’s dad said he witnessed Broner get knocked silly a long time ago by Errol Spence during a sparring session that left Broner in tears in the ring.
“Adrien Broner was in real tears because Errol [Spence] put him on goofy street,” Porter’s father/trainer Ken Porter told Thaboxingvoice.com. “He hit him with a left and a right hook at his [backside] started wobbling…So we said ‘stop. Stop.’ Adrien was like ‘No. No. Let’s go. I said ‘No, that’s enough. Come out of the ring.’ He couldn’t accept the fact what the dude [Errol Spence] had just did to him. He started crying and wouldn’t get out of the ring. He didn’t go down. He just wobbled so bad that we said ‘stop.’”
Errol Spence (16-0, 13 KOs) is a big puncher with incredible talent. It’s not surprising that he did that to Broner. Spence will be fighting on Saturday night against Phil Lo Greco on the Broner-Porter card. Floyd Mayweather Jr. says he wants to match Spence up against WBC welterweight champion Keith Thurman next if possible.
Comments are closed.