By Scott Gilfoid: WBA light welterweight champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (31-2, 23 KOs) is saying that he’s going to kick his over-matched opponent Ashley Theophane’s backside on April 1 in their fight in Washington, District of Columbia. Broner, 26, says it’s going to be fun against the 35-year-old Theophane (39-6-1, 11 KOs).
I guess it will be fun, but it’s not exactly sporting though. Theophane isn’t even ranked in the top 15 by the four sanctioning bodies, and he’s been beaten in the past by lesser fighters than Broner. Theophane has losses to Pablo Cesar Cano, Darren Hamilton, Ali Oubaali and Danny Garcia. Broner might be better than Garcia too.
“April 1st I’m beating Ashley Theophane [expletive] doe Floyd Mayweather REAL TALK,” Broner said on his Twitter. “This will be fun.”
It’s interesting that Broner is calling Theophane a “doe.” The definition of a doe = a female deer. A female of certain other animal species, such as hare, rabbit, rat, ferret, or kangaroo.”
In other words, Broner is referring to Theophane as a she rather than he. I don’t even know why trash talking is necessary with this mismatch. I mean, I can understand trash talking if Broner were fighting a guy near to his own level or someone better than him. But for him to be trash talking a guy like Theophane, who is clearly levels below him in terms of talent, it just comes across as mean-spirited on broner’s part.
This is a fight that arguably shouldn’t even be happening due to Theophane not being ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies. I guess the World Boxing Association is fine with Broner fighting a guy that isn’t a ranked contender.
I’m surprised because that should be a requirement for a champion in defending his title. I mean, if all the champions are allowed to comb the 2nd and/or 3rd tier ranks to find fodder opponents when making voluntary defenses of their titles, then you’ll get a lot of sick mismatches like this and I think it’ll kill the sport over time.
I think Theophane would be good for someone like little Rod Salka or 5’5″ Carlos Molina. Either of those guys would be a good fight against Thephane. But I don’t agree that Theophane should be getting a world title shot when he isn’t even ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies. That just seems wrong. It’s like a race to the bottom of the sport when you have mismatches like this.
Broner already had it easy in winning the vacant WBA light welterweight title last October in stopping an over-matched Khabib Allakhverdiev in the 12th round. Allakhverdiev was coming off of a loss to Jessie Vargas in his previous fight and a year long layoff. It was just bad the fact that he was given a title shot off of a defeat. But then again, Broner had been beaten in his previous fight against SDhawn Porter, and he was clearly the last person who deserved a world title fight.
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