Adrien Broner is a three weight world champion already so his name will always hold some weight. The point I am trying to highlight in this article is that very few fighters make it to the very top of the sport where they become household names and make ridiculous amount of money. When you look at the forbes list of highest paid athletes you see a boxer in the number 1 spot, but then you see only 1-2 other boxers in the top 25. There is a sharp dropoff between an elite star and a ‘good’ fighter.
Broner was hyped so much early on is his career than his name was even featured on Ring Magazines pound for pound top ten at one point. You wouldn’t expect that now after his one sided loss to Marcos Maidana and several disappointing perormances since. Some fans have already written him off as a hype job and looked elsewhere to find the guy who will replace Mayweather as the next king. Keith Thurman is one of the next popular options.
The rebuilding process for Broner following his loss to Maidana has been a slow and painful one. Two disappointing decisions later and how far is he to putting his name back at the top? He is not even rated as a top five fighter in his division let alone one of the top names pound for pound like he once was. Danny Garcia, Lucas Matthysse, Jessie Vargas, Viktor Postol and either Lamont Peterson or Ruslan Provodnikov would make the top 5 with Broner in the 6-8 range at super lightweight.
John Molina jr is not a top 25 contender at this weight, however he is a dangerous fighter and this is a decent fight and one I am excited about. Molina has the punching power and aggressiveness to give Broner problems.What needs to happen at this point is for Broner to put on a show, a dominant performance would go some way to restore weight to his name but another disappointing close decsion wont do the job. Molina has 5 losses in a little over 30 fights, 2 of these have been by stoppage. Broner has to differentiate himself from the other five men to have beaten Molina in putting on a great show, maybe dropping him and hopefully getting a win within the scheduled distance.
If Molina was to win this fight? You can forget about Broner for the next few years.