Broner: Theophane is going to be a tough fight for me

By Boxing News - 02/24/2016 - Comments

broner1111By Scott Gilfoid: Earlier today, the fight between WBA light welterweight champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (31-2, 23 KOs) and the 2nd tier fighter Ashley Theophane (39-6-1, 11 KOs) was announced officially for April fool’s day on the 1st of that month for Premier Boxing Champions on Spike TV.

The fight will be taking place on a Friday, which is very rare for title fights, but somehow fitting for this mismatch. The fight will be taking place at the DC Armory in Washington, D.C. I’m not entirely why the fight will be staged over there, because Broner is from Cincinnati, Ohio and Theophane comes from England.

Staging the fight in Washington, D.C makes about as much sense as does the actual fight itself. I am so, so surprised that the World Boxing Association is sanctioning the fight because the 35-year-old Theophane isn’t ranked in the top 15, and that at least should be the criteria for letting a world title fight take place.

Even when making a voluntary defense, champions should at least defend against top 15 contenders in my opinion. When you start letting champions hand-pick fighters from the second and third tier ranks, that’s when you potentially see guys get hurt. While I think Theophane is a fine little fighter. I don’t see anything that he’s done in his last 10 fights that would suggest that he deserves to be fighting for a world title. Theophane was beaten by Darren Hamilton and Pablo Cesar Cano in the last four years, and I see that as reason enough for Theophane not to be fighting for a world title.

“Ashley Theophane is a world class fighter and this is going to be a tough fight for me,” said Broner. “I’m very excited to fight in Washington, D.C. My following is huge in D.C., it’s my second home, and I think we’re going to give the fans what they’re looking for. I want to fight the best in the 140-pound weight division and Ashley Theophane is one of the best.”

Oh boy, Broner is changing up his usual trash talking style to build up his opponent instead of tearing him down. What does that tell you about Theophane. I can’t remember where Broner has ever spent time building up one of his opponent ahead of time. When you see something like that from Broner, it tells me that he’s got a mismatch and it’s not even sporting to tear the guy down. I mean, I don’t blame Broner one big for doing the opposite of what he normally does, because it would look really bad for him to tear Theophane apart.

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This is a fight more than any other fight where Broner’s opponent needs to be built up so that boxing fans will be interested in watching it. Theophane doesn’t have the name, notoriety or the resume to attract fans to the fight just based on his name and track record. That’s why you can make an argument that the fight shouldn’t have been made in the first place.

It was a mismatch from the word go. If I was Broner, I would spend the next month and a half smothering Theophane with compliments and would build him up to the point where boxing fans would start to wonder who the champion is and who the challenger is. That’s the only way that Broner can really do it because if he tears Theophane down, fans are going to really see the fight as a horrible mismatch and likely not even bother watching it on Premier Boxing Champions on Spike.

I get to have my career defining fight against a four-division world champion. It gets no bigger than that. I will be leaving the ring on April 1 as the new world champion.”

Broner, 26, has gotten off to a good start in building up Theophane with his nice comments about him being a “tough” fight for him. However, he’s going to need to do a lot better than that if he wants to market this fight to the casual boxing fans.

Broner is coming off of a 12th round knockout win over Khabib Allakhverdiev last October. Broner won the vacant WBA light welterweight title in that fight. Both him and Allakhverdiev were coming off of losses in that fight, and a lot of fans were critical of the fight taking place due to their recent defeats.

Theophane beat Steve Upsher Chambers by a 10 round decision last September. That was Theophane’s sixth straight win since his loss to Cano in 2013.



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