By Jackie Kallen
It has been said that Adrien Broner looks up to Floyd Mayweather jr. as a big brother figure and idolizes the champ. The 24 year-old Cincinnati native has been striving from Day One to be a carbon copy of 37 year-old “Money” Mayweather. He praises his role model every chance he gets.
The way things are going in both men’s careers–they are possibly headed for a collision somewhere down the line. Though they have never verbally expressed interest in fighting each other, it may end up that way. If Broner gets back on the winning track and strings a few W’s together, he may be the only logical man for Mayweather to end his career fighting.
Broner has yet to redeem himself for the embarrassing loss last November to Maidana. With his nemesis fighting Mayweather in May, it looks like Broner may get a slot on the same card. And who is being touted as his opponent? None other than Amir Khan, who just got passed over as an opponent for Mayweather on May 3.
Which means that if Mayweather beats Maidana (and no one is expecting anything else) and if Khan beats Broner–those two could fight next. But if Broner annihilates Khan, he and Mayweather get one step closer to a showdown.
Floyd Mayweather is easily the P4P best fighter in the world. At 45-0 he has beaten every man who has stepped into the ring with him. He knocked out more than half of them and humiliated the rest. What is left for him to accomplish?
Floyd will most likely retire by the end of 2015 and Broner has a chance to be that one last final challenge. A lot can happen in the next 18 months and Mayweather has some slots to fill between now and then, but with Pacquiao slowly fading into the background, the marketable options for Mayweather start to diminish. Unless Pacman demolishes Timothy Bradley, few fans care if he fights Mayweather or not.
Khan is coming off of two big wins and Broner is still licking his wounds from the Maidana fight, so it looks–on paper, anyhow–like a good match-up. Boxing fans want the big fights. They want equally-skilled fighters to fight one another. Especially when it’s a PPV card and they are shelling out serious money.
There has been a lot of chatter about the May 3 card. When Floyd announced that he’d let the fans select his opponent, people’s ears perked up. The fans voted and selected Khan. But Mayweather elected to fight Maidana. Khan being on the undercard has to be viewed as a consolation price for him. The purse against Broner would be nowhere close to the purse against Money.
So, assuming that Mayweather and Broner both win on May 3–their odds of meeting up in the future will increase. Personally, I think it has the makings of a great strategic boxing match.