#2 WBA Adrien “The Problem” Broner (30-2, 22 KOs) will be fighting #5 WBA Khabib Allakhverdiev (19-1, 9 KOs) this Saturday night on October 3rd for the vacant WBA “regular” light welterweight title on Showtime Championship Boxing from the U.S. Bank Arena, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Allakhverdiev, 24, hasn’t fought in over a year a half since losing his WBA 140lb title to Jessie Vargas by a 12 round unanimous decision in April 2014. It’s unknown why the World Boxing Association is letting Allakhverdiev get a title straightaway off of a loss to Vargas and an almost two year period of inactivity.
It seems like the WBA would have been better off saying no to this fight and picking out someone higher ranked like #3 WBA Amir Iman for Broner to fight instead of #4 WBA Allakhverdiev. Of course, if the WBA had said that Broner had to fight Iman, we might have seen him pull out of the fight and go in another direction. Iman can fight and has big punching power. I’m not sure that Broner or his adviser Al Haymon would agree to a dangerous fight like that one would likely be.
Broner is also coming off of a defeat of his own in losing a 12 round unanimous decision to former IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter last June. Broner looked really poor against Porter, and spent much of the fight moving, holding and fouling. It was really sad to see how Broner’s game had disintegrated to this level.
.@AdrienBroner headed home 10/3 to face Allakhverdiev, seeking 4th world title in 4 weight classes. #Boxing
https://t.co/1HA65NfKcE
— SHOWTIME SPORTS (@SHOsports) September 24, 2015
Broner was never much of a clincher before, but it looks like he took notes from his mentor Floyd Mayweather Jr. in deciding to hold Porter at every opportunity last June. It’s as if it Broner didn’t trust his ability to fight Porter on the inside, so he chose to clinch him each time he came inside.
Broner has a pretty good inside game, but he didn’t use it in that fight. Broner did fight well in the 12th round when he went after Porter and knocked him down with a left hook to the head. Broner fought like a copy of Marcos Maidana in that round, and he looked great. If Broner could fight like that all the time, he would be very hard to beat.
Allakhverdiev is the perfect fighter for Broner to beat and look good against. Broner wins this fight whether he fights with his old Mayweather-esque pot shot style or if he uses the aggressive attacking fighting style that we saw from him in the 12th round against Porter.
Hopefully, Broner fights aggressively because he’s going to need to be able to fight like this in his future bouts at 140 when he has to fight the likes of Amir Amin, Lucas Matthysse and Viktor Postol. Broner won’t be able to pot shot his way to victory in those fights.
In the co-feature but, IBF super featherweight champion Jose Pedraza (20-0, 12 KOs) will be defending his title against Edner Cherry (34-6-2, 19 KOs)
Also on the card is the following fights:
Robert Easter vs. Miguel Acosta
Jamel Herring vs. Yakubu Amidu
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