By Dan Ambrose: WBA Super light welterweight champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (31-2, 23 KOs) will be defending his WBA title this Friday night on April 1 against #9 WBA Ashley Theophane (39-6-1, 11 KOs) on Premier Boxing Champions on Spike TV from the DC Armory in Washington, DC.
Theophane is one of Floyd Mayweather Jr’s fighters in his Mayweather Promotions stable of fighters. You can argue that Broner is doing Mayweather a favor by electing to fight the 35-year-old Theophane, because he could have elected someone else if he had wanted to. However, the Theophane fight also helps Broner at the same time.
By being matched against a fighter that he has a good chance of beating, Broner will be able to hold onto his WBA title a little longer than he otherwise would have been able to. Broner is clearly not a major talent, as we’ve seen in his losses to Marcos Maidana and Shawn Porter.
Broner’s handlers have to be careful in who they match him against because if they put him in with someone too good, he’s likeable to lose the fight and wind up back in the contender ranks.
With Broner facing a weaker opponent in Theophane, it puts more pressure on him to win the fight and look good in doing so. Broner can’t afford to just win the fight. He’s got to beat Theophane in a dominating fashion and not be seen to struggle. Boxing fans will be looking closely at the fight to see if Broner is able to dominate.
If Broner can’t dominate a fighter like Theophane, then this fight will be almost like a defeat because Broner sees himself as the replacement for Mayweather. If Broner is in the same class as Mayweather, then he’s got to be able to school the lower level fringe contenders like Theophane without any problems. The fight cannot be a competitive one because that would only affirm in the eyes of the boxing fans that Brooner is little more than a paper champion.
This was a bad idea for Broner to fight someone at this level in the first place. Broner needs to be fighting the very best in the 140lb division in order to increase his brand in the boxing world.
The fact that Broner’s handlers chose to match him against Theophane makes you wonder whether they have doubts about whether Broner’s talent and ability to beat the better fighters in the 140l division.
You can argue that if Broner’s management truly believed in him, then they would have never chosen to match him against Theophane in the first place. They would have instead put him in with a better fighter that could have really tested him like Ruslan Provodnikov.
Broner was beaten last year by Shawn Porter by a 12 round decision. Broner wasn’t knocked down in the fight like he had been in his loss to Marcos Maidana in 2013, but he still looked very bad.
Other fights on the Broner-Theophane card:
Robert Easter vs. Argenis Mendez
J’Leon Love vs. Michael Gbenga
Gervonta Davis vs. Guillermo Avila
Anthony Peterson vs. Samuel Neequaye
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