The most anticipated fight of this jam-packed boxing weekend is the matchup between Shawn Porter and Adrien Broner. It is one of the best fights of the year and fans seem split on picking a winner.
My biggest thought on the fight: I hope it actually happens.
Most of my skepticism comes from being a boxing fan and knowing that we rarely get what we want. My wild imagination is currently working up theories on flash floods, alien takeovers, and fluke arena fires that cause the fight from happening.
However, a very real concern for this fight is the weigh in. Not the official day before weigh in because even though it is being fought at a catch weight of 144lbs I’m confident that Porter will hit the weight because he is a physical freak of nature. I also doubt Broner comes in over because the catch weight was his idea and he’d look like a fool if he missed it, besides he has been fighting at 140lbs in his last three fights.
The weight in I’m concerned with is the one scheduled for the morning of the fight. There is a clause in the fight contract that states Porter can’t weigh more than 10lbs over the catch weight limit. Again, my concern is not with Porter weighing 154lbs, although it could affect his performance.
When Thaboxingvoice.com asked Team Porter whether or not Broner was being subjected to the same 10 pound max clause they did not know for sure. Now, it’d be shameless and hard to believe if Broner was exempt from the same weight restrictions as Porter, but that doesn’t really matter right now.
At last week’s press conference for the fight, Thaboxingvoice.com’s Fernando Pimentel was shut down when he asked Leonard Ellerbe about the catch weight. The whole situation seemed fishy and everyone involved, excluding the Porter’s, were acting very sketchy about the issue, including Broner.
Shawn told Thaboxingvoice during our twice weekly internet radio show that he was upfront about the weight issues during the press conference, but he was told that Broner wasn’t.
“I was asked catch weight questions and answered them with no problems. I was told every time one of those questions was presented to Adrien Broner he literally said ‘I don’t want to talk about catch weights’ and he said ‘no comment.’”
Now, if Broner doesn’t intend on adhering to the same stipulations as Porter then there will be an issue, and Shawn’s father/trainer Ken Porter assured Thaboxingvoice in the same radio interview that there will be a problem if the scales are tipped in an unfair manner (no pun intended).
When asked straight up about the likelihood of Broner not weighing in within 10lbs on Saturday afternoon Ken Porter said, “That’ll be a problem they’ll have to deal with because they’re not going to be able get that off, that’s not going to happen. That’s just going to shed more light on the fact that he’s afraid to take the fight against Shawn at 147lbs.
“If that does happen, if that occurs where somebody says ‘oh, Shawn’s gotta make that’ and I don’t see that Adrien has to make the same exact weight, because he’s got to weigh in with us the next morning as well, and if he doesn’t have to weigh in with us the next morning then we’re not weighing in. Simple as that.”
We don’t have to assume too much because in all likelihood Adrien will meet the same weight requirements, but if there is a last minute power play from the Broner camp it could derail the fight.
Most assume that the fighter coming down, Shawn, would be the one to worry about, but Ken assures us that making the weight won’t be an issue. Not only that, but Ken says the circumstances leading up to the Broner agreement made the catch weight easy to accept.
Ken tells Thaboxingvoice.com that Shawn was only 13-14lbs off of the agreed to weight at the time of the Broner fight being made.
Team Porter was working on keeping their weight down when the fight was presented to them because prior to the Broner discussions Shawn was hoping to land a spot on the undercard of Mayweather-Pacquiao. If you add in the fact that Shawn had just come off a training camp for a fight which took place 45 days prior then it seems to add up.
Making the weight might not be an issue, but this fight boils down to how well Shawn can perform under the weight clauses. If he can perform in the same manner as always then he has to be the favorite. Although, Broner is an incredible athlete and catch weight or not, it is a difficult fight for both. Let’s hope it comes off without an issue.
