Lucas Browne looking for a big fight

By Boxing News - 03/09/2016 - Comments

browne4333By Jeff Aranow: New WBA World heavyweight champion Lucas “Big Daddy” Browne (24-0, 21 KOs) and his promoter Ricky Hatton are looking for a big fight. Browne, 36, is supposed to be facing Fres Oquendo next, but there’s a possibility that Browne may go in another direction towards facing the winner of the Charles Martin vs. Anthony Joshua fight.

What Browne isn’t interested in is facing the average run of the mill contenders in the division that won’t bring him anything. Browne feels that those fighters should work their way up to the top just like he had to.

Whether Browne can face the winner of the April 9th Martin-Joshua fight is unknown at this point. You can bet that Browne and Hatton will be attendance to scout that fight out because they’ll need to know as much as possible about the winner of that contest if they want to face him.

“My message is simple: p*** off!” Browne said via dailytelegraph.com.au. “If you want to win yourself a world title, great. Go do what I did. Fight a heap of times overseas, work your way up and earn it the hard way. I have to accept that people are going to start stirring me in the media. Promoters, managers, fighters. They’re all going to want to make me bite.”

It’s quite understandable why the contenders in the heavyweight division would want to fight the 36-year-old Browne. Like Charles Martin, Browne looks vulnerable, perhaps more so. Browne was trailing the entire time in his fight against former WBA heavyweight champion Ruslan Chagaev last Saturday night before scoring a stoppage in the 10th round in their fight in Grozny, Russia.

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Browne was not fighting well through the first nine rounds of that bout. Browne looked very slow, and he was trying to box instead of using his natural power and size to get the better of the smaller 37-year-old Chagaev. Due to Browne’s frequent movement, he wasn’t hit a lot by Chagaev with solid shots. However, in one of the rare times Browne was hit hard, he was dropped in the 6th round.

For any contender who saw the Chagaev-Browne fight, they must see weakness in Browne that they can exploit. Browne doesn’t look as solid as the other heavyweight world champions Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder or interim WBA champion Luis Ortiz.

“I’ve already had guys like Solomon Haumono approach me but what the hell have they done to earn a world title shot? I had to get my belt the hard way. So should everyone else.”

Browne may wind up having to fight 42-year-old #6 WBA Fres Oquendo next. That’s not an ideal fight for Browne because it doesn’t offer a big payday and there’s risk involved. Oquendo is a good boxer/puncher with a great deal of experience. He’s someone that Browne would need to overpower rather than try and out-box like he was doing with Chagaev last Saturday night. Browne may be required to face Oquendo next. That’ll be determined by the WBA. Oquendo will likely be pushing for the Browne fight to make it happen next.



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