Adrien Broner vs. Mikey Garcia in the works

Boxingnews24.com

By Dan Ambrose: A fight between WBC lightweight champion Mikey Garcia and former four division world champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner is reportedly in the works for this summer in July. This would be a fight that would be televised on Showtime Championship Boxing. If the Broner vs. Mikey fight gets made, it would be shown on that network. It would definitely be a nice fight that would bring in ratings. Broner needs a big fight right now because he hasn’t done much with his career as of late.

The unbeaten Mikey Garcia (36-0, 30 KOs) would need to move up to 140 from the 135 pound weight class for the Broner fight to happen. Broner (33-2, 24 KOs) last fought at welterweight in February against Adrian Granados.

“Today [May 16] is the first day of camp…the date is still not confirmed, so I should have a confirmed date in a week or two, but it seems like July, so that’s why we decided to start today,” Mikey Garcia said to ESNewsreporting.com.

Broner vs. Mikey will be a great fight. Broner has a good chin, and he usually does well against fighters smaller than himself. The 5’6” Mikey is a little shorter than the 5’7” Broner, and he has a much smaller frame. There would be a big weight difference between the two of them if this fight takes place. It might be tough on Mikey if he can’t knockout Broner, because he would be forced to take a lot of shots.
“Only if y’all knew what was on the way. #Boxing,” said Broner on his Instagram in giving a big heads up to his boxing fans about an upcoming fight.

Broner matches up better against the slender Mikey Garcia than he would if he were to fight someone from the welterweight division. Broner doesn’t have the size, speed or the power to beat the best guys in the 147 pound division. If Broner can take Mikey’s big power shots long enough to get him in the second half of the fight, he could wind up knocking him out.

Broner is in Miami, Florida working out and trying to take off weight. In recent video of Broner, he looks heavy right now, and not in shape yet to fight. The good news is that Broner would still have 2 months to lose the weight to get down to 140 to face Mikey Garcia by July if the fight gets made. Broner looked to be 20 pounds overweight as of last week. He should be able to take the remaining weight off by July to fight Mikey.

Broner isn’t the biggest puncher in boxing, but he’s got decent power and he throws a lot of punches typically in his fights.

Mikey hasn’t been in too many fights where he’s punched back by his opponents. Mikey is usually able to knock his opponents out so fast that they’re unable to hit him. The one fight where Mikey was starting to get hit a little was against Orlando Salido in 2013. Mikey had dominated the first 7 rounds of the fight in knocking Salido down 4 times. However, Salido was starting to get to Mikey in the 7th and 8th. You could see that Mikey was starting to look worried because he was getting hit with body shots, and he wasn’t punching with the same power any longer.

In the 8th round, Mikey suffered a broken nose from a head-butt. Instead of continuing to fight like many fighters do when they have a broken nose, Mikey let his trainer stop the fight. It looked to some boxing fans that Mikey wanted the fight stopped because he was starting to take punishment from Salido and he might have ended up losing. The fight went to the scorecards and Mikey won an 8th round technical decision. Salido was less than complimentary of Mikey afterwards, pointing out that he also had a broken nose, but he wasn’t looking to quit.

Mikey got away with holding his arm out far in front of him to push off on Salido the entire fight. Normally when a fighter uses that move, the referee is supposed to warn them and take points off. But Mikey was able to hold arm out in front of him the entire fight to keep Salido from getting close. When Salido would come forward, Mikey would push off on him with his outstretched arm.

Salido wasn’t too happy with the way that Mikey was allowed to bend the rules the entire fight without penalized or disqualified with this move. The referee working the fight Benjy Esteves Jr. didn’t take points off from Mikey for some reason. Salido looked pretty frustrated by the 8th round from being shoved by Mikey so frequently in the fight. Salido was out there on his own in the fight without help from the referee to control what Mikey was doing in shoving him with his lead hand. I’d never seen anyone use this method against Salido in the past. It worked for Mikey, but only because the referee didn’t stop him from doing that.

Broner would likely have problems getting down to 135 if the fight were to take place in that weight class, even though Broner started his boxing career out at 135 back in 2008. Broner, 27, has clearly gotten bigger as he’s aged and it could be difficult for him to even make 140. Without a weight penalty, it’s quite possible that Broner might not be able to make 140. Broner hasn’t made 140 since his win over Khabib Allakhverdiev in October 2015. Broner failed to make the 140 lb. limit in his title defense of his IBF light welterweight title against Ashley Theophane in April 2016.

This is a better fight for Mikey than it would be if he fought Vasyl Lomachenko. Broner is more stationary than Lomachenko, and he’s arguably better known among the casual boxing fans in the U.S. Broner might not be as talented or as skilled as Lomachenko, but he’s better known in the U.S due to his years of being involved in high publicity fights. Broner speaks English, and he’s got at creating hype for his fights. Mikey get a lot more attention fighting Broner than he would in facing Lomachenko, who barely speaks English. That would be a fight that would likely bring in good ratings, but not tremendous ratings.

Mikey is interested in fighting WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao in a big fight. However, there are HUGE obstacles to that fight taking place. Mikey isn’t with Top Rank anymore, and the promoter for that company Bob Arum seems to mainly matching Pacquiao against his own fighters from his promotional stable rather than putting him in with guys outside of Top Rank. It’s unclear if Arum is only going to match Pacquiao against Top Rank guys for the remainder of his career in order to increase the value of these fighters.

It doesn’t look like Mikey will get a shot against Pacquiao. But he might be able to get a fight against Top Rank fighter Terence Crawford. That would be a decent fight, but a tough one for Mikey because Crawford is very defensive, and he’s not easy to hit. Crawford is mainly just known by the hardcore boxing fans and fans from his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.