By Keith Idec

Marcus Browne intends to pick up at the start of 2018 where he left off last year.

The unbeaten Browne wants to defeat Francy Ntetu impressively January 20 at Barclays Center and secure a title shot later this year. The light heavyweight contender doesn’t prefer one 175-pound champion over the others, but he would welcome a shot at the winner between Adonis Stevenson and Badou Jack.

Quebec’s Stevenson (29-1, 24 KOs) is expected to make an optional defense of his WBC light heavyweight title against Jack sometime in the spring. Jack (22-1-2, 13 KOs), a former WBC super middleweight champion, made a dominant debut at light heavyweight when he dismantled Wales’ Nathan Cleverly (30-4, 16 KOs), won by fifth-round technical knockout and took the WBA light heavyweight championship August 26 on the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Conor McGregor undercard at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Staten Island’s Browne will keep a close eye on the Stevenson-Jack bout, but made it clear during a conference call Thursday that he isn’t overlooking Ntetu. The Browne-Ntetu bout will be part of the Errol Spence Jr.-Lamont Peterson undercard January 20 in Brooklyn.

“I’m super-focused and super-locked in on Francy Ntetu at this point,” Browne said. “But, you know, I’m a fighter at heart. So I don’t see no special effects in either of those guys. Adonis is super-strong. Badou’s a workhorse. He comes and he works, but I don’t see any of them beating me, personally. That’s as far as that goes at this point, right now. Speak to me after January 20th. Then we’ll talk about it more, and we can elaborate on it more. But at this point, I’m focused on Francy. But those guys are definitely in my sights and I don’t really see nothing crazy.”

The 27-year-old Browne (20-0 15 KOs), a 2012 Olympian, scored back-to-back knockouts of Thomas Williams (20-3, 14 KOs) and Sean Monaghan (29-1, 17 KOs) in 2017. The 35-year-old Ntetu (17-1, 4 KOs), a native of The Republic of Congo, has lost only to WBC super middleweight champion David Benavidez (19-0, 17 KOs), who stopped Ntetu in the seventh round of their June 2016 fight at Barclays Center.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.