By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions seems to have missed the boat with a major part of the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Marcos Maidana fight card on May 3rd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. They’ve added two fighters – Amir Khan and Adrien Broner – in an undercard that is one of the most expensive in the history of the sport due to Khan and Broner’s big names, but they they’ve taking it easy on Broner by letting him fight Carlos Molina (17-1-1, 7 KO’s), an opponent that is almost guaranteed to be knocked out. Khan is facing Luis Collazo on the card, which is a pretty decent fight, but that’s the only good one on the undercard.
Golden Boy also has unbeaten but deeply flawed super middleweight J’Leon Love (17-0, 10 KO’s) facing Marco Antonio Periban( 20-1-1, 13 KO’s) in the fight right before the Broner-Molina bout. Golden Boy could have saved a lot of money if they had shaved Broner off the card altogether or at least insisted he fight someone that brought value to the card. They could have eliminated Broner if he or his manager Al Haymon insisted on the mismatch against little 5’5″ Carlos Molina. Having that fight on the card is a waste of time.
If Golden Boy is trying to rebuild Broner, they’re going to have a hard time doing it without keeping him completely isolated away from the good fighters at 140. He’s obviously done with the 147lb division after his recent loss to Maidana, and his controversial win over Paulie Malignaggi. But Broner isn’t going to have any better luck at 140. If Golden Boy is going to try and rebuild Broner by having him fight weak opponents instead of quality opposition, they’re wasting their time.
Broner won’t be able to hang with Danny Garcia, Lamont Peterson, Lucas Matthysse, and Ruslan Provodnikov at 140. I wouldn’t be surprised if even Anthony Peterson, the brother of Lamont Peterson, was able to beat Broner at 140. Broner doesn’t have the work rate, power, hand speed or the movement to be successful in the light welterweight division.
Golden Boy might be assuming that the 26-year-old Love could eventually win a world title at some point in the future, but if you’ve watched his recent fights against Gabriel Rosado and Derrick Findley, it’s hard to see Love as anything more than a career fringe contender. He was knocked down by Rosado in a fight that he should have arguably lost. He was given a very controversial 10 round split decision, which was changed to a no contest after he tested positive for a banned substance.
Ignoring the positive test that Love had, he didn’t show anything in the Rosado or Findley fight that would suggest that he has the talent to hang with the top fighters in the super middleweight division. He may or may not be able to beat Periban, but it’s still not a great fight for the Mayweather card. Periban was beaten by Sakio Bika last year in June in losing a 12 round decision. In his last fight, Periban fought to an 8 round draw about Badou Jack.
So why is Periban fighting on the Mayweather-Maidana undercard? Is it to make Love look better than he actually is? Both of those guys would be easily beaten by Andre Ward or Carl Froch. If Golden Boy is going to string Love along until Froch and Ward retire someday, we could be waiting a long time for that to happen and he still may not be able to make that jump if he has to fight someone that is actually good like George Groves. Love gets hit too easy, and doesn’t have big power.
Golden Boy isn’t going to get too many buys from boxing fans wanting to see Periban and Love fight each other. If they want to have Love on the card, they needed to put him back in with Rosado and make it a 12 round bout. Love looked like he was en route to being knocked out by Rosado last time they fought, and think he’d lose to him in a rematch.
Comments are closed.