Pacquiao vs. Broner to have 2-city press tour for Jan.19 fight

By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao and Adrien ‘The Problem’ Broner (33-3, 24 KOs) will be taking part in a 2-city press tour for their January 19 fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Pacquiao-Broner fight will be officially announced on November 19 for their fight on Showtime PPV.

The dates for the press tours are on November 19 at the Gotham Hall in New York City, and on November 20 at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills, California.

The boxing public wants to see Pacquiao face better opposition than Broner and Lucas Matthysse. They want to see Pacquiao fight Errol Spence Jr., Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, Terence Crawford and Danny Garcia. Broner is yesterday’s news, a fighter that has been on the slide since his loss to Marcos Maidana in 2013. If Broner could move back down to super featherweight, he might be relevant, but he doesn’t belong at welterweight fighting someone like Pacquiao. The major unknown about the Pacquiao-Broner fight is whether the boxing public will see the Pacquiao that defeated Matthysse or if it’ll be the guy that looked poor against Jeff Horn and Vargas. Broner has a chance of beating Pacquiao if he looks like that. Pacquiao’s stamina and his killer indict was missing in action in those fights. Against Matthysse, Pacquiao looked like the fighter he’d been a decade again when he was smashing his opposition. That fighter has been missing for so long. If Pacquiao can get back to that level, he’s going to be a nightmare for Broner.

This is going to be a great fight for both guys. They have a lot on the line. Pacquiao (60-7-2, 39 KOs) will be making his first defense of his WBA ‘regular’ welterweight title that he won last July in stopping Lucas Matthysse in the 7th round in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was one of the best performances for Pacquiao in many years in the way that he systematically took apart a good fighter in 35-year-old Matthysse (39-5, 36 KOs). Pacquiao didn’t get as much credit as you would think he would due to Matthysse’s age. Pacquiao will need to beat Broner, 29, and some of the top welterweights before he’s given credit for his victories.

The fight that Pacquiao wants is a rematch with Floyd Mayweather Jr. That’s a fight that could take place in 2019 if he gets past Broner. There’s a lot of money for Pacquiao to make in fighting Mayweather a second time. Their first fight broke PPV records in 2015, and gave Pacquiao a large $100 million payday. A second fight might bring Pacquiao even more money depending on how well it does. Mayweather is great attracting interest in his fights no matter who he faces.

Broner’s career is looking to be on skid row at this point with him coming up empty in his last two fights against Josesito Lopez and Mikey Garcia. Broner fought Lopez to a 12 round draw last April, and he lost his fight before that to Garcia by a 12 round unanimous decision in July of last year. A lot of boxing fans believe that Broner is a shot fighter. Whatever the case is, he’s not the fighter that he was in winning world titles at 130, 135, 140 and 147. If Broner hasn’t lost anything, it means that he won world titles against weaker opposition, who weren’t talented enough to beat him. It would be a much tougher situation for Broner today to try to win world titles at super featherweight, lightweight, light welterweight and welterweight. There are fewer weak opponents for Broner to take advantage of in those weight classes.

Pacquiao is with new management in signing with Al Haymon, who has a lot of great fighters that he can put him in with. Pacquiao is no longer with Top Rank, and he’s switched out his trainer Freddie Roach. It’s surprising that Pacquiao is looking better now that he’s no longer with Roach. Pacquiao is trained by his helper now Buboy Fernandez, and he’s doing quite well.

This is a fight in which Pacquiao can finish Broner off as a major player in boxing. If Pacquiao looks the way he did in his last fight against Matthysse, he’s going to demolish Broner on January 19. Broner is still useful now because he wasn’t beaten badly in his last two fights by Mikey Garcia and Jessie Vargas. Things will be different for Broner if he’s destroyed by Pacquiao in a way similar to how Marcos Maidana beat him in 2013. That was a bad beating for Broner. He was knocked down twice, and trounced.

Errol Spence: I don’t like Adrien Broner

IBF welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. (24-0, 21 KOs) says he doesn’t like Adrien Broner, because he never wanted to fight him. Spence, 28, says he doesn’t like him as a person or as a fighter.

“Adrien Broner don’t want to fight me, I really don’t like the dude,”Spence said via Michael Benson. “I really don’t like him. I don’t like him as a person. I don’t like him as a boxer,” Spence said.

Spence will have even more reason to dislike Broner if he loses his January 19 fight against WBA ‘regular’ welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (60-7-2, 39 KOs) on Showtime PPV in Las Vegas, Nevada. Borner hasn’t done anything to deserve the title shot in recent years. Broner is ranked #6 by the World Boxing Association, but that ranking is one that has seemingly been done based on things that Broner did in the distant past.

Spence certainly knows Browner having sparred with him years ago. According to trainer Kenny Porter, Spence hurt Broner during a sparring session, and they had to stop it. Broner was a world champion at the time, and he didn’t want to leave the ring.

There’s no reason for Spence and Broner to fight at this point. Broner hasn’t won a fight in year and a half, and even that was a controversial 10 round split decision victory over Adrian Granados in February 2017 in Cincinnati. That was a fight that Broner was lucky to win. It took place in his hometown, and it looked to a lot of boxing fans that he lost. In Broner’s last two fights, he’s failed to win against Jessie Vargas and Mikey Garcia.