By Scott Gilfoid: Conor Benn is casting a wide net for aging former world champions for his next fight in March or April. In some respects, Benn is hunting for fish are all played out and have little life left in them to throw the hook or break the line potentially.
Like a fisherman targeting a specific category of fish, the undefeated welterweight contender Benn (20-0, 13 KOs) is targeting older champions that are well-known to the boxing public but harmless at this stage of their careers.
The guy that Benn wants the most right now, Adrien Broner, is talking about needing a tune-up fight first before facing Conor.
That’s terrible news for Benn and his promoter Eddie Hearn because they were hoping that Broner would take the fight next, but that doesn’t look likely.
With that said, if Hearn makes it a sweet offer of enough money for Broner to wet his beak in the dough, he can probably be persuaded to face the young 25-year-old upstart Benn in April.
Conor wants a specific type of opponent
As Gilfoid has already stated, the prize catch that Benn is fishing for is the shopworn Broner, who is arguably starting to go bad at this stage in his career. Broner is ripe for the picking and maybe a little too ripe in the eyes of the hardcore boxing fans.
They’ve given up on Broner, and there’s nothing to be gained from Benn fighting the Cincinnati native at this point. It might work against Conor in taking this fight because the casual boxing fans won’t have any idea who Broner is, and the hardcore fans will be disgusted by this choice of opponent.
Take it from an expert angler; catching old fish is no good and a complete waste of time. Benn would be better off targeting someone more relevant, even if it means that he might lose.
Broner (34-4-1, 24 KOs), a former four-division world champion, hasn’t won a fight without controversy for five years since his ninth round knockout victory over Ashley Theophane in 2016.
Sadly, Adrien’s ONLY two wins in the last five years were a pair of controversial decisions over Adrian Granados in 2017 and Jovanie Santiago in 2021. Many boxing fans, this writer included, had Broner losing BOTH of those fights, which
Mikey & Danny Garcia being targeted
“Aside from Broner, which I believe Eddie Hearn is trying to make for March or April, I’d like to fight Mikey Garcia, Danny Garcia,” said Conor Benn to World Boxing News on who he wants next. “I’d like Ugas. These are fights I’d take next.”
The 33-year-old former four-division world champion Mikey Garcia is too small to be fighting at 147, and he’s looked poor in his three fights at welterweight.
Since moving up to the 147-lb division in 2019, Mikey (40-2, 30 KOs) has lost two out of his three bouts. He’s coming off a 10 round majority decision loss to light welterweight fringe contender Sandor Martin last September in a fight where Mikey looked shockingly bad.
For the fans unaware, the bout took place at welterweight. Mikey’s lone win at welterweight was a questionable 12 round unanimous decision over the shot to pieces former two-division world champion Jessie Vargas in February 2020.
Mikey’s best weight classes during his long 15-year pro career were 126 and 130. Though Mikey looked good at 135, he only briefly fought in that weight class before going up to 140 and 147.
Former two-division world champion Danny Garcia (36-3, 21 KOs) hasn’t fought in a year since his loss to Errol Spence Jr. in December 2020, and it’s unlikely that he’d be willing to be used as a trail horse for Benn.
Like with Mikey and Broner, if Hearn can come up with enough money, he might be able to talk Danny into taking the fight with Benn, but it would be a risky one because he can still punch.
Benn wouldn’t be able to count on Danny Garcia doing something stupid like backing up against the ropes the way that Chris Algieri and Samuel Vargas did against him. Garcia doesn’t make simple mistakes like that. If Benn is going to beat Danny, he’ll need to do it in the center of the ring.
Brook and Khan don’t want to fight Benn
“Amir Khan don’t want it. No chance he will want it,” said Benn. There’d be no way. I’ve spoken to him about it. He’s retiring after the (Brook) fight. Kell Brook, I’d take the fight all day long.
I’d fight either of them, but I’ve got more of a chance to fight Jake Paul,” he said. “It’s one of them situations — why would they want to fight me?”
Gilfoid disagrees with Benn. Former IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (39-3, 27 KOs) WILL likely readily agree to a fight with Benn, but whether Hearn will make it worth his while to take the battle remains to be seen.
It’s doubtful that Hearn will want to ruin all the hard work he put in with Conor’s career with his soft match-making by putting him in with a live fish like Brook, who still punches with more than enough power KO Benn.
In his prime, Brook was a far better talent than Benn has shown during his career. Even in Brook’s last fight against Terence Crawford, he showed that he can still punch and is dangerous.
If Hearn tossed Benn into the ring with Crawford, he would get taken out much faster than Brook because Conor is flawed and not much better than the fighter he was a couple of years ago when he was dropped twice by a little-known French boxer Cedrick Peynaud.
Surprisingly, Benn was given a controversial decision over Peynaud in their first fight, but many boxing fans saw it as a robbery in broad daylight.
Ugas is too dangerous for Conor
Benn says he would like to fight WBA welterweight champion Yordenis Ugas right now if possible, but he can’t because he’s expected to face IBF/WBC champion Errol Spence Jr. next.
It’s doubtful that Hearn would give Benn the green light to challenge Yordenis for his title if he had the opportunity to fight the Cuban.
The experience and the talent level of Ugas are on another level to that of Benn, a basic slugger that has been matched against old guys by Hearn. Ugas is a guy from the Cuban national team who has massive talent despite being up in there at 35.
Ugas is a far better fighter than Benn, and he’d embarrass him and make Hearn look bad for letting him take this level of a fight at this stage of his career.