BOB ARUM: This is a very interesting promotion as far as I’m concerned. A lot of people are concentrating on the new and improved Tim Bradley. Manny Pacquiao with his right arm now totally repaired – he has had that torn rotator cuff since before the De La Hoya fight. A lot of athletes are able to perform well with a torn rotator cuff – a lot of pitchers in the major leagues are able to perform well with it. Obviously now that it’s repaired, it is at full strength.
Adrien “Problem” Broner (32-2, 24KO) stopped Ashley Theophane 39-7-1, 11KO) in nine at the D.C. Armory, Wash D.C. No big deal. Everyone expected him to win. It just took a little longer than he predicted. The real story was the current episode of the Problem Child’s soap opera life. Just as television series often do, fans (audiences) were initially left hanging.
Fans wondered about several “what ifs”. What if the Problem gets arrested and incarcerated due to criminal proceedings in Cincinnati, Ohio? Will the Wash. D. C. commission deny Broner a license? If so, will the entire card be scratched? Speaking of scratched, that’s what officials were contemplating when the Problem refused to take off another 4oz to make the junior welterweight limit of 140.
In a crushing blow to his career, previously unbeaten heavyweight contender Robert Helenius (22-1, 13 KOs) tasted defeat for the first time in his eight year pro career in getting halted in the 6th round by #12 WBC Johann Duhaupas (34-3, 21 KOs) on Saturday night at the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki, Finland. The fact that Duhaupas, 35, was able to go into Helenius’ own hometown to defeat him has to hurt even worse for him.
Undefeated super middleweight contender Callum Smith (19-0, 14 KOs) used very little finesse in blasting out an over-matched and much lighter looking EBU super middleweight champion Hadillah Mohoumadi (20-4-1, 15 KOs) in the 1st round in their contest on Saturday night at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England.
The big punching former world title challenger Eric Molina (25-3, 19 KOs) picked up a career best win tonight in defeating Tomasz Adamek (50-5, 30 KOs) in stopping him in the 10th round in front of his own Polish fans at the Tauron Arena in Krakow, Poland. Molina was trailing in the fight going into the 10th, when he came alive and knocked Adamek out with a right hand to the head.
Unbeaten British heavyweight hope Anthony Joshua is a level-headed kind of guy, and he realises he has plenty to learn before he is ready for the division’s elite. The 2012 Olympic gold medallist may well rip the IBF version of the heavyweight championship from Charles Martin a week today, but Joshua – as he told Forever Sports magazine – will not feel anywhere close to satisfied. That sense of satisfaction will not come, Joshua said to the magazine, until he has become undisputed heavyweight champion.
By Ron Scarfone at ringside – Andy Perez of A&T Events and Promotions in conjunction with Anja Marx of Doberstein Promotions presented an action-packed boxing event titled “Fight Night” on April 1 at the War Memorial Auditorium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The venerable facility which has recently been renovated first opened in 1950 and honors the United States military veterans who served during wartime. In the main event, it was a fight of fringe contenders as Roamer Alexis Angulo of Bogota, Colombia faced Claudio Ariel Abalos of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In the days leading into last night’s Adrien Broner-Ashley Theophane fight – a match-up that had not set fight fans on fire – the main topic of discussion was not the fight itself, but the shenanigans Broner had, and was getting up to outside of the ring. Broner’s legal troubles generated plenty of ink, as did his failure to make weight for the Theophane fight, but “The Problem’s” seemingly very real problem in getting along with his one-time hero and “big brother,” Floyd Mayweather Junior really set tongues wagging and got keyboards pounded.
It’s been 18 years since London-born Lennox Lewis tore the lineal title, in March 1998, from Shannon “The Cannon” Briggs, to add to the WBC belt he already owned. Back then, former world title holder Frank Bruno had not fought for two years, but Norfolk’s Herbie Hide still held the WBO strap, he’d won from Tony Tucker the previous year. The mid-late 90s is possibly the most successful spell in British heavyweight history, but now, in 2016, the United Kingdom’s current crop of heavyweights are looking to change that.
By Justin Jones & Paul “Paparazzi” Jones – Photos © Paul “Paparazzi” Jones — Washington, DC — Adrien “The Problem” Broner (32-2, 24 KOs) is accustomed to making headlines inside and out of the ring. Last night, he did both in a matter of hours.
More specifically, Broner “kept his promise” to the public with a controversial stoppage of Ashley Theophane in the 9th round of the Premier Boxing Champions’ (PBC) main event at the DC Armory in Washington, DC. But stopping a game Theophane wasn’t enough to send shockwaves through the packed house.