By Keith Idec
Adrien Broner believes he’s at his best in the boxing ring when he fights at the super lightweight limit of 140 pounds.
Each of his two losses – unanimous-decision defeats to Marcos Maidana and Shawn Porter – came in fights at contracted weights of 147 pounds and 144. That’s why Broner (33-2, 24 KOs) didn’t hesitate to accept a fight against unbeaten WBC lightweight champion Mikey Garcia at 140 pounds July 29.
“Just check my record,” Broner said during a recent conference call. “I’m undefeated [at 140 pounds] and I’ve got almost all knockouts. Only a couple, literally, where people lasted. But everybody knows in the boxing game, once Adrien Broner is focused and I’m on track, nobody beat me. Only I beat myself. And I’m tired of coming up short and selling myself short.”
Cincinnati’s Broner is 5-0 in fights with contracted weight limits of 141 or 140 pounds. His two most recent fights at those weights resulted in technical knockout victories over England’s Ashley Theophane (40-7-1, 11 KOs) and Russia’s Khabib Allakhverdiev (19-2, 9 KOs).
The Theophane fight was supposed be Broner’s first defense of the WBA super lightweight championship that he won against Allakhverdiev (19-2, 9 KOs). The former four-division champion weighed in at 140½ pounds, however, and gave up his title at the scale 14 months ago in Washington, D.C.
The 27-year-old Broner promised that he won’t have any difficulty making weight before facing Garcia (36-0, 30 KOs), the Oxnard, California, native who will move up from 135 pounds to 140 for a 12-round fight Showtime will televise from a site to be determined.
“I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten more wise, more mature,” Broner said. “This next half of [my] career, I’m just focusing on doing everything the correct way. The first half I tried to do things my way, and it worked, but I could’ve done better, so I wanna try doing everything correct.”
To that end, Broner will train for the Garcia fight in Colorado Springs, Colorado, far away from the drama that frequently lands him in legal trouble in or around Cincinnati. The enigmatic ex-champion hasn’t trained in Colorado Springs since his camp prior to his loss to Maidana in December 2013.
“I’m going back just to where I can focus on strictly boxing,” Broner said, “because I want this to be one of the best performances of my career. And like I said, man, I feel like my back is against the wall and it’s time to fight out.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.