Adrien Broner vs. Ashley Theophane confirmed for April 1 on Spike

By Boxing News - 02/10/2016 - Comments

broner5456By Dan Ambrose: In what has to be seen as disappointing news, WBA light welterweight champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner’s first defense of his WBA title has been confirmed against unranked second tier fighter Ashley Theophane (39-6-1, 11 KOs) for April 1 on Premier Boxing Champions on Spike TV, according to Fight News.

This is sad event in my view, because Theophane is not a top 15 ranked contender at 140, and it’s just really troubling that a mismatch like this could take place. The 35-year-old Theophane is with Mayweather Promotions, so that could be one of the reasons why the mismatch is being made.

Broner (31-2, 23 KOs) made it known that he would be facing Theophane in his next fight after beating fringe contender Khabib Allakhverdiev by a 12th round knockout last October in their fight for the vacant WBA light welterweight title.

Here’s what Broner said about the Theophane fight after stopping Allakhverdiev:

“I’m going to fight who I want to fight and when I want to fight them. You know, they say my big bro, the on, the only Floyd Mayweather, he say he got a fighter that he feels like he can beat me. I think his name is Ashley, but if that is true, this is what you do, big bro, because bosses talk to bosses. You put Ashley on one of your private jets, bring him to come see me.”

Me and @floydmayweather was talking behind @ashleytheophane back like……#AboutBillions #EasyMoney

A video posted by Adrien Broner (@adrienbroner) on

If Broner is truly going to be fighting the guys that he wants to fight rather than the fighters the boxing fans want to fight, then he can probably forget about building up a big enough fan base one of these days for him to become a pay-per-view attraction. Broner isn’t going to become a PPV star by fighting guys like Theophane, Allakhverdiev, Carlos Molina, Emmanuel Taylor and Gavin Rees. The only way that Broner can pick up fans is if he starts fighting the very best possible opponents.

Theophane has a six fight winning streak since his loss to Pablo Cesar Cano in 2013, but none of the opposition he’s faced were quality guys.

YouTube video



Comments are closed.