Broner moving to 147, says he’ll beat Mayweather

By Boxing News - 04/02/2016 - Comments

1-LR_FIGHT NIGHT-BRONER vs THEOPHANE-04012016-8225By Allan Fox: After defeating #9 WBA Ashley Theophane (39-7-1, 11 KOs) by a 9th round knockout last Friday night in a surprisingly competitive fight on Premier Boxing Champions on Spike TV, Adrien “The Problem” Broner (32-2, 23 KOs) says he’ll be moving up to the welterweight division to campaign at 147.

Broner failed to make weight last Thursday at the weigh-in, and it’s clear at this point in his career that he needs to move up. Broner says that he’ll talk with his adviser Al Haymon to see what his next fight will be. Broner is ready to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr., and he says he’ll take his unbeaten record away from him if that fight gets made.

Broner further says he won’t be calling Mayweather big brother anymore. He now will only be calling him by his first or last name. Broner said after the Theophane fight last night that he would like to fight Mayweather. However, it remains to be seen whether Mayweather will choose to fight Broner.

With Broner’s losses to Marcos Maidana and Shawn Porter, and his less than dominating performance against Theophane last night, there’s really no upside for Mayweather to fight Broner. He doesn’t have an unbeaten record, and he never avenged his losses to Maidana and Porter. Mayweather would get about as much credit for beating Broner as he did Andre Berto last September.

You can make an argument that Broner is heading in the same direction as Berto. It’s hard to imagine Broner still being a major player by the time he’s Berto’s age at 32, because Broner looks like he’s losing hand speed and his work rate since he moved out of the super featherweight division years ago.

“He [Mayweather] won’t be 50-0,” said Broner via Fightnews.com if he were to fight Mayweather. “That ‘Big Bro’ s__ is out the window. From now on, he will address me as AB and I will address him as Floyd Mayweather. I was going to shake his hand and thank him and for giving me this easy money.”

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It’s slightly disturbing that Broner is proud of taking on a lesser opponent. That’s definitely old school. When you see a fighter that is bragging about how he was setup with a soft opponent for an easy payday, then that suggests that fighter might not be someone that is willing to take on the best.

If Broner is just going to look for easy paydays in fights on Premier Boxing Champions, then he’s heading towards career suicide. Broner needs to be fighting the best if he wants to become a huge pay-per-view attraction. Fighting guys like Theophane, Carlos Molina, John Molina Jr. and Khabib Allakhverdiev aren’t going to turn Broner into a star. On the contrary, it’s just keeping him in play because he’s not standing out from the pack.

Last night’s fights on PBS were all one-sided mismatches from top to bottom, at least the televised card was. Broner needs to start fighting better opposition because before he knows it, he’ll be Berto’s age and will have lost what little hand speed that he has. Broner does not have fast hands, and he’ll likely continue to slow down as he ages. I’ll be surprised if Broner is still fighting at 147 by the time he’s in his 30s, because I think he’s going to eat his way to 154 and be stuck at that weight or perhaps even 160.

“I’m a four-time world champion in four different weight divisions,” said Broner. “We’ve won that belt already. We are going on to the next one. I’m not fighting at 140 again. I’m going up in weight and my next fight will be at 147 pounds.”

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It seems pretty obvious that Haymon will match Broner up against WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia. That’s a 50-50 fight, and it’s one that Haymon can make because he manages both guys. I don’t think Haymon is going to match Broner against the winner of the Keith Thurman vs. Shawn Porter fight because those guys would have a clear edge against Broner.

We saw how Porter dominated Broner last June in winning 11 of the 12 rounds. The only round Broner won was the 12th, and that was only because Porter got careless in getting knocked down. Haymon won’t put Broner in with IBF 147lb champion Kell Brook because he hits too hard, and he has too much size. Brook is more like a melted down junior middleweight at this point in his career. I can’t see him staying at 147 for too much longer.

Mayweather understands that he would be doing Broner a big favor if he chose to give him a fight, and I don’t think he wants to reward him with a big payday. I think Mayweather is going to steer a wide berth around Broner, and let him sink or swim on his own. If Broner is going to become a big star at 147, then he’s going to need to be able to do it the hard way by beating the top guys on his own.

With the emergence of Errol Spence in the welterweight division, Broner’s chances of making things happen in that weight class are decreasing by the day. Haymon will need to keep Broner away from Spence at all costs, because we’ve heard from Shawn Porter how Spence made Broner cry during a sparring session they had. I think the only way Haymon is going to be able to do anything with Broner at welterweight is to match him up right away with Danny Garcia, and then if he wins that fight, which I doubt, then match Broner against Amir Khan.

I don’t think Broner can beat Khan because he’s too slow, and he can’t move around the ring like Khan. There’s a real small window for Broner to make something happen at welterweight, and he’s got to move in quickly because once Khan is back down at 147 and once Spence starts winning all the titles, Broner won’t have any place to go in the division. He can be a contender/challenger type of gate keeper, but that’s about it. However, with all the titles available, Broner might be able to become an interim champ and use that to validate him to the casual boxing fans.



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