Theophane: Broner will get worried when I’m still there in round 5

By Boxing News - 03/19/2016 - Comments

broner100By Scott Gilfoid: Ashley Theophane (39-6-1, 11 KOs) is really up against it in his once in a lifetime world title shot against WBA Super light welterweight champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (31-2, 23 KOs) on April 1 on Premier Boxing Champions on Spike TV at the DC Armory in Washington, DC. I can’t say I like Theophane’s chances in this fight, but if it’s consolation, he has my pity.

Theophane doesn’t have the punching power to match-up against Broner in this contest, and about the only thing he can really do is try and outwork Broner and count on maybe edging him on the scorecards.

Broner has too good of a chin to be taken out by a fighter with the kind of limited punching power that Theophane possesses. As such, Theophane needs to take the Paulie Malignaggi approach to try and beat Broner by hitting him with a lot of pitty-pat punches and hope the judges are impressed with his work rate.

“The focus is to go in there and outwork him on fight night. At the end of the day I have to set the pace. I can’t go out there and outbox him because he’s got tremendous skill and speed,” said Theophane.

I hate to say it but I really don’t like Theophane’s chances in this fight. I mean, I’m frankly surprised that the World Boxing Association even sanctioned the fight because Theophane isn’t even ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies, as far as I can tell.

Theophane is well-connected though due to him being one of Floyd Mayweather Jr’s stable fighters, but that’s about the only thing I can see that he has going for him in this fight. The track record isn’t there for Theophane to show that he deserves a fight against a talent like Broner, and I think this fight could get well out of hand quickly.

Theophane is coming off of a 10 round decision win over Steve Upsher Chambers in his last fight in September. To be sure, it was a decent win for Theophane, but we are talking about a win over a second tier fighter, aren’t we? It wasn’t a good enough win to really say anything about Theophane other than he’s still fighting fodder at this at this advanced stage of his career.

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“So I have to be able to go out there and outwork him and make it a war,” said Theophane. “When he sees that I’m still there in round five, he’s going to start to get worried. My whole thing on fight night is to work and bring a war.”

So there you have it. Theophane is going to go out and try and take a page out of the feather-fisted Malignaggi’s playbook by trying to outwork Broner the way that Malignaggi did in their fight in 2013. The only thing is Malignaggi still lost the fight despite outworking Broner.

What this tells me is that you can’t just outwork a big puncher like Broner and hope to win; you’ve got to be able to REALLY outwork him if you want the victory. That’s for fighters that don’t have any punching power to speak of like Theophane. You can’t just land slightly more punches than Broner and hope the judges will give you the decision.

The judges aren’t going to give you a decision win over a harder punching talent like Broner if all you can do is barely land more punches than him. If you no power like Theophane, then you basically have to stay in the pocket and double or even triple the connected punches that Broner lands in the fight. I wish Theophane a lot of luck trying that. I mean, it’s definitely possible for Theophane to double or triple Broner’s punch output.

We are talking about a fighter who averaged a pitiful 25 punches thrown per round in his loss to Shawn Porter last year in June 2015. If Theophane can throw 75 punches per round against Broner, he might have a chance to win. But, I think Broner is going to increase his own punch output against Theophane because he’s facing a non-puncher. This means that Theophane is going to probably need to average 100 punches thrown per round to have a chance of beating Broner on April 1. Is it possible? Yes. However, I’ve never seen Theophane even throw 75 punches per round before. I don’t know how in the heck he’s going to be able to average 100 punches thrown for 12 rounds. I just don’t see it happening. But if Theophane does that against Broner, I think he’ll have a very good chance of winning as long he doesn’t get staggered or dropped along the way. It’s still a tough ask for anyone, especially a fighter like Theophane, who isn’t known for throwing a lot of punches in his contests.

“As a boxer, you want to fight the best, and you want these big nights,” said Theophane. “For me, it’s been a hard road to get to this point, and I’m actually looking forward to fight night because I know it’s going to be a very hard fight, and I know in order for me to win I have to be at my best, and that’s what I have prepared for.

Theophane is going to need a really good chin for him to be able to stand in the pocket and be able to get off the high number of shots for him to outwork Broner. Judging by some of the work Broner is doing on the mitts, it looks like he’s going to be looking to go after Theophane’s midsection to try and take him out with a body shot. Broner’s trainer might have seen a weakness in that area with Theohane that they believe they can exploit on April 1.

The undercard of the Borner-Theophane fight has a few decent fights. Lightweight Robert Easter faces Argenis Mendez. Super middleweight J’Leon Love battles Michael Gbenga, and super featherweight Gervonta Davis faces Guillermo Avila. Decent fights, but nothing to write home about.



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