by David P. Greisman
There is no contractual clause that would mandate a rematch between newly crowned welterweight titleholder Marcos Maidana and now-deposed Adrien Broner, whom Maidana topped by unanimous decision on Saturday night.
Nevertheless, Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions said immediately afterward that he “wouldn’t mind a rematch.”
That would easily be doable, given that Golden Boy works with both Maidana and Broner.
Broner said afterward that he wanted an immediate rematch: “I don’t need a warm-up fight,” he said.
Maidana also wasn’t opposed to the idea: “I have no problems with a rematch,” he said.
Yet Schaefer also noted that there are many options available for each.
He noted that this was Broner’s second fight at welterweight, with the first coming as a split decision over Paulie Malignaggi this past June. Before that, he’d been a titleholder at junior lightweight and lightweight, then jumped up two divsions.
“I think he’s going to have to see if he wants to stay at 147 or wants to go down,” Schaefer said. “At the weigh-in, he came in way below 147 [at 144.2 pounds]. He told me at the weigh in [that] he can still make 135.”
Broner still holds his world title at lightweight.
“I would like to do a rematch, so why not?” Schaefer added later. “But there are other great fights and opportunities out there for Broner or for Maidana.”
Golden Boy works with several name fighters in the welterweight division, who are now potential foes for Maidana.
“I just had a new 147-pound IBF world champion here, Shawn Porter, and he said, ‘Look, I want to unify it,’ ” Schaefer said.
Among the other names Golden Boy has at welterweight are Keith Thurman, who stopped Jesus Soto Karass on Saturday’s undercard, Malignaggi, Victor Ortiz, Devon Alexander, Robert Guerrero and Amir Khan. And then there are junior welterweights such as Danny Garcia, Lucas Matthysse and Lamont Peterson.
Schaefer brought up the idea of Maidana vs. Thurman, and then, perhaps pondering the potential carnage, began laughing: “I can’t do that, come on,” he said repeatedly.
“The other fight that’s going to have to happen is Maidana vs. Matthysse,” he said. “You know how many great options we have?”
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