In a surprise move, the contract weight for Adrien Broner vs. Jovanie Santiago’s light welterweight clash has been moved up from 140 to 147 for their fight this Saturday night on Showtime at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn.
There’s no official explanation for the increase in weight from 140 to 147. Still, many boxing fans on social media are pointing fingers at the former four-division world champion Broner (33-4-1, 24 KOs), as he’s making a comeback after two years out of the ring.
Additionally, Broner has reportedly lost 35 pounds, and that might not have been enough for him to make the contractual weight of 140.
It’s not a big deal in the big scheme of things that the weight is being moved up for the Broner-Santiago fight, considering it’s not a world title fight. It’s Broner’s comeback fight, and he’s the one that wanted it to be at 140.
AB could have told his management to make it happen at 147 or whatever weight, and it would have been done. But the fact that Broner, 31, has told the media that he’s now campaigning at 140, it looks unprofessional on his part that the weight is being bumped up to 147.
When you’re going to do something and then fail to do it, it reflects on you, showing you lack discipline. While we don’t know whether the weight is being moved up to accommodate Broner, it’s hard not to view him as the one behind it.
When you look at how filled out Broner was during today’s final news conference with Santiago and compare how he looked the last time he fought at 140 against Mikey Garcia in 2017, it was obvious that AB wasn’t going to make 140. After all, Friday is the weigh-in, and Broner clearly looks fleshy and nowhere near 140.
Here’s what was said by Showtime:
*Editor’s Note: The main event, previously announced as a super lightweight fight, will now be contested at the welterweight limit (147 lbs.) following a mutual decision from both fighters.
They say it was a “mutual decision” by Broner and Santiago, which could mean many things. Was Santiago and Broner both having problems making the 140 lb limit or just AB?
Boxing fans would look at Broner as the one is behind the increase in weight because he’s the guy who was overweight when he started training for the fight.
If Broner can’t get down to 140 now, when will he be able to do so? For him to have any chance of capturing a world title, he’s going to have to try and accomplish that at 140.
Yeah, Broner won a world title at 147 in June 2013 when he beat then WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi by a controversial 12 round split decision. Malignaggi was a flawed belt-holder.
Even then, Broner’s win over him was highly questionable. A lot of boxing fans felt that Malignaggi did enough to deserve the win.
If Broner can’t be counted on to make weight at 140, he might as well forget about it and go back up to 147 and try and hustle fights against the top welterweights. Broner is still one of the best talkers in the sport, and he can get boxing fans interested in his fights against talented 147-pounders.
The only downside of that is Broner no longer wins fights. How useful can Broner be if he never wins anymore? I mean, his last victory was in 2017, and that was a controversial 10 round split decision over Adrian Granados in Cincinnati, Ohio.
I had Granados winning that fight comfortably. What’s interesting about Broner’s fight with Granados is it was supposed to take place at 140, but it was bumped up because of AB.