By Scott Gilfoid: Boxing may not have Floyd Mayweather Jr. in action that much nowadays, but fans will get an opportunity to see Mayweather clone Adrien Broner (24-0, 20 KO’s) fighting next month against WBC lightweight champion Antonio DeMarco (28-2-1, 21 KO’s) on HBO on November 17th at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Broner, 23, can do everything pretty much that Mayweather can do, but with a much cheaper price tag given that Broner’s fights aren’t yet on expensive $49.95 pay per view cards like Mayweather’s. That’s likely to change in the very near future if Broner keeps destroying his opponents one after another and bringing in huge ratings for HBO.
Broner is seriously on the cusp of being boxing’s newest mega star and he’s coming on just in time with Mayweather no longer fighting often and showing signs of slowing down as a fighter. Broner is stepping into the gap that Mayweather has left behind and is giving boxing fans what they crave in a fighter.
The only real problem that Broner has is he’s fighting at lightweight right now, and casual boxing fans don’t have a whole lot of interest in watching fighters in that division. Let’s face it, fans pretty much don’t give a fig about seeing lightweights fight, at least not in the U.S. I guess it’s different elsewhere, but in the U.S fans don’t care about that division and the sooner that Broner moves up in weight to welterweight the better. Even if he moves to 140, Broner is still going to have problems because fans don’t care about that division either.
Broner has got to make easy work of the tall, and painfully skinny 5’10” 135 pound DeMarco on November 17th. Broner can’t let DeMarco hang around like Broner did with Daniel Ponce De Leon, because then Broner’s critics will have ammunition to say that Broner should have lost even if he totally dominates DeMarco. I’ve seen Broner’s fight with De Leon a dozen times and I thought it was one of Broner’s best fights because he boxed beautifully all night long, picking De leon off with accurate punches and rarely getting hurt. I had Broner winning that fight 9 rounds to 1 with the one rare De Leon got being more of a mercy rounds than anything. Broner simply schooled him and looked sensational in doing so.
DeMarco does have good power in the Alexis Arquello mold, but Broner is going to walk though his big shots to tear him up on the inside with powerful combinations. I can’t see DeMarco lasting long once Broner has gotten warmed up.
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