Eight Division world champ Manny Pacquiao has been sidelined with a shoulder injury suffered in his super fight with Floyd Mayweather and is now searching for an opponent to make his return against in 2016.
Candidates for Pacman’s dance partner include Terrence Crawford, Lucas Matthysse, and Amir Khan.
However, Roy Jones Jr. had a different opinion of whom Pacquiao should fight next. In an interview with lead HoopJab correspondent Neal Anthony Johnson, Jones stated that he hopes Mayweather-Pacquiao II can happen in the future. That was not the interesting part of his response. Jones Jr. went on to say that if Pacquiao is leaning toward another Floyd Mayweather fight he would want to see Pacquiao beat Broner first.
Jones explained to Johnson, “Broner is the closest thing to Floyd Mayweather that we’ve seen, as far as style wise. So let us see how you do against Broner. If you beat Broner then you give us a reason to think, ok maybe you have understood the style enough to get back in front of Floyd Mayweather again.If you don’t beat Broner, then we know you ain’t going to come close to beating Floyd.”
If Pacquiao lost to Broner, a Floyd rematch would be off the table. Still, a Pacquiao-Broner clash is nowhere to be found on the radar of big fights for 2016. Politics aside, this is not a fight that Al Haymon and Bob Arum would come together for in the spirit of business.
Broner just fought Allakverdiev and called out Ashley Theophane after defeating Khabib, two names that do not belong in the same sentence with Manny Pacquiao regarding boxing pedigree. Also, if the rumor that Adrien Broner is to be trained by Freddie Roach is true, again just rumor, then that fight is definitely off the table, as is a fight with Viktor Postal due to his allegiance with Roach.
I respect Jones as much as the next guy, but beating a fighter like Broner does little for Manny? A.B has already suffered losses to two pressure fighters at 147 (Porter and Maidana), both of whom are not as highly regarded as Manny. Broner does do several things similar to Mayweather, but to say he is the closest thing to Mayweather we have seen? I do not agree with that.
In my opinion, guys like Andre Ward and Erislandy Lara are a bit more similar to Mayweather. Ward and Lara are both exceptionally skilled boxers who have been accused of being boring and uneventful in the ring.
I have heard a lot of criticism about A.B. However, I have never heard that his fights are boring. Broner has scored 23 knockouts in 31 wins and is always entertaining. Even if Broner is “About Boxing” from now on, I don’t see him winning, or even being a contestant in the Pac sweepstakes next spring.
