Adrien Broner vs Ashley Theophane has been a fight floating around the boxing radar for the past few months, but it was just recently that it was made official. On April 1st, Adrien Broner (31-2, 23 KOs) will make his first title defense of his 140 pound WBA belt against British veteran Ashley Theophane (39-6-1, 11 KOs) on PBC on Spike.
Broner is in need of a career resurgence as he has seen himself go from headlining on Showtime Championship Boxing to now headlining a PBC on Spike main event: not exactly where AB pictured himself at this juncture in his career. However, Broner is still a big name and still a massive talent who has an ample amount of time to get back to the top of his division.
This matchup with Theophane is not the stiffest test Broner will have encountered in his career. Simply put, Ashley does not fit the profile of fighters that would typically bother Broner, fighters such as Shawn Porter and Marcos Maidana. Theophane is not a pressure fighter but rather a boxer who moves around the ring sticking his jab and landing single soft shots. Broner should easily outpoint or possibly stop Theophane if he is anywhere near top form.
The venue is not yet official for this fight, but one would imagine that it will be held in Broner’s home state of Ohio as it wouldn’t be a big ticket seller anywhere else. It is difficult to tell where this fight could lead Broner as most of PBC’s big names are in the 147 pound division and not super lightweight.
Broner will look to put on a much better PBC performance in his second time on the series, as his PBC debut against Shawn Porter was a stinker, a fight in which Broner looked downright awful and did not seem to have a game plan.
An intriguing factor leading up to this fight will be if Broner takes his training camp seriously, as he is fighting a boxer who is not near the same talent level as he is. So will Broner spend more time lifting weights, or popping bottles leading up to this fight? Only time (and Broner’s Snapchat) will tell.
