It is typical for a fighter coming off of a big win to sit back and weigh his options. The frustrating part of it all is when a fighter rests on his laurels stemming from his latest success. A fighter will receive all of the benefits that come from a major victory only to refrain from another quality fight.
The failure to capitalize off of this momentum is not favorable in the eyes’ of fans. Fighters that try to live off of one big win for as long as they can usually find themselves in particularly difficult situation where their options are thwarted by commercially appealing fights or simply by weight issues – moving up to chase a particular opponent.
Shawn Porter is riding a substantial high after defeating Adrien Broner in his last fight. The win was huge, and it has placed him in a very strong position amongst his young welterweight contemporaries.
However, Porter has no desire to wait out his next big fight, and if it were up to him, he would be in tough in his next outing. For Porter, there are no undesirable fights unless the opponent represents a step backwards from Broner.
Porter’s name continues to be mentioned with the biggest fights at welterweight. Fighters like Keith Thurman, Amir Khan, and Timothy Bradley continue to be tagged with Porter’s name as potential blockbuster bouts.
Porter himself has called for a fight with Danny Garcia, only after Garcia mentioned him as a potential opponent.
The good thing for Porter is that he is physically built to bounce back and forth between weights. He has already competed as high as middleweight, although he’s never made the 160 lb. weight limit. Porter is big enough to compete at junior middleweight, and yet his last fight was fought at a catch-weight of 144 lbs.
There is no desire from Team Porter to move up, and he plans on staying at welterweight for now. After all, there are plenty of matchups to be made. Porter recently told Tha Boxing Voice that he would move up to 154 lbs. for the right opponent.
Recently, there have been reports suggesting that Team Porter is or was interested in a fight with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Porter denies these rumors, but he doesn’t deny his interests in a fight with the Mexican superstar.
When asked by Tha Boxing Voice’s Nestor Gibbs about the potential of a move to 154lbs, Shawn concurred that he would for Canelo.
“Definitely for that possibility [of fighting Canelo]. Right now, we haven’t discussed moving up to 154lbs, but I don’t know where that [rumor] came from, but that’s a big opportunity for another big fight. Yeah, I will move up for something like that, but right now 147 lbs. is where we want to be.”
Obviously, that fight won’t happen anytime soon – for multiple reasons – if ever. The politics of boxing wouldn’t allow that fight to be made with ease. More to the point, Canelo is scheduled to face off with Miguel Cotto in one of boxing’s most desired fights on November 21st.
Porter is not just a major player at welterweight, he’s also a boxing fan, and the Cotto-Canelo fight excites him. He is as split as the rest of us when it comes to dissecting this fight.
“That’s a big fight. That’s a clash of titans, right there. I’ve said this publically; I’m a Miguel Cotto fan so I would love to see him pull that out. Whether that youth catches up to him in Canelo Alvarez remains to be seen.”
Porter is not making a prediction for this fight, but he will be rooting for one guy over the other.
“We’ve seen a transformation in Cotto, and this isn’t the first transformation we’ve seen. We’ve seen him go from just a body puncher to a boxer. We’ve seen it all. My best goes out to him. I hope he wins the fight. “
