By Jeff Aranow: Former four division world champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (32-2, 24 KOs) says he’s open to a fight against WBO 140lb champion Terence “Bud” Crawford and he thinks he would beat the Omaha, Nebraska native if that fight takes place.
Broner also says he doesn’t need Floyd Mayweather Jr. Broner says the 39-year-old Mayweather needs him in order to stay relevant in the sport. In other words, Broner seems to be putting himself in the position as the younger generation and one of the top guys that Mayweather has to fight to keep himself in the limelight.
Mayweather brought up coming back to the sport in an interview last Saturday with Showtime. However, Mayweather also said he would be coming back only for a nine-figure payday. That’s a big payday for Mayweather if he’s only going to be fighting a guy like Broner, who isn’t a PPV fighter yet and has lost twice in his career to Marcos Maidana and Shawn Porter.
“That’s cool. Make my money right, we’ll have a hell of a night,” said Broner to power1051fm.com about a fight against Crawford. “I’ll kick his [expletive], too. I’m trying to tell you, I’m in a different mind state right now. I’m so focused on my [expletive]. Half of my career is over. This next half, it’s time to get serious. No more hiccups.”
Crawford’s promoter Bob Arum will probably be pleased to learn of Broner’s interest in fighting Crawford, because Arum has said in the past that he would very much like to match Crawford against Broner.
Arum would take that fight in a second if Broner is serious about wanting to fight the 28-year-old Crawford. However, Broner’s manager Al Haymon might not be too thrilled at putting a fight together between Broner and Crawford because he doesn’s a lot of business with Top Rank and Arum nowadays. Broner might not be able to take that fight if he was serious in the first place.
“It’s not about a shot or none of that. I don’t need him,” said Broner about a fight against Mayweather. “To be honest, he needs me to stay relevant. His window is — it’s about to close,” said Broner.
It’s true that Mayweather’s window is about to close, but that’s only because he’s made so much money that he’s lost interest in fighting. If Mayweather wanted to, he could probably stick around for another two years and still dominate the welterweight division. What’s left of Mayweather’s career would likely extend past the point where Broner is relevant, because he’s clearly not able to compete at the highest levels at 147, and he’s got limitations at 140 as well.
If Haymon makes the mistake of matching Broner against Crawford, Viktor Postol and Mauricio Herrera, he would probably lose all three of those fights. It’s tough because Broner is well paid, but there’s a lot of fights that wouldn’t be good for him and it’s not likely that Haymon will put Broner in those fights now that he’s shown his limitations in his loss to Porter.
Broner, 26, has won his last two fights against Ashley Theophane and Khabib Allakhverdiev. Those are not top level fighters. It looks like Haymon being very careful in who he matches Broner against at this point in his career. He’s not someone like Mayweather who can be put in with anyone in the division and be counted on to win the fight. Broner can’t be matched like that anymore now that he’s fighting at light welterweight. He used to be able to be counted on to win all his fights when he was at super featherweight and lightweight, but things have changed since he moved up in weight.