Click here for our latest update on the story – Broner vs. Escobedo being cancelled
Saturday night’s Adrien Broner vs. Vicente Escobedo fight in Cincinnati, Ohio, is currently in jeopardy. The Broner vs. Escobedo weigh-ins were held on Friday afternoon, and while “Chente” Escobedo, who was dropping down from lightweight, made weight without any issue, Adrien Broner didn’t even come close. He weighed in at 133.5 lbs, three and a half pounds overweight, and made no effort to make the weight after the failed first attempt.
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Update 2: 2:30 pm Saturday – Broner weighed in at 143 lbs on Saturday morning, more than they agreed, with his team claiming they thought it was 10 pounds more than he had weighed yesterday, not 10 pounds more than the division limit. The teams are still trying to hash things out, and this fight is on the verge of being cancelled, which would have to nix the entire HBO card one would think. No clue as to how they will handle this. They are trying to feed Escobedo more money, potentially doubling his total purse, to agree to take the fight, while his team is also working to force a final pre-fight weight for Broner. Stay tuned…
Update: Broner will weigh in on Saturday morning. Word is if he is over 140 pounds, team Escobedo walks away
- Broner: 133.5 lbs
- Escobedo: 130 lbs
In other words, Broner pulled a “Mayweather” – showing up heavy for a fight, having never had any intentions of making weight. Of course, he’s doing it at a time in his career with about 1/50th of the accomplishments and fame of Mayweather. You can’t just pull this kind of stunt without repercussion, and one would think HBO is growing tired of his antics.
Broner figures though that he’ll suck up the financial penalty – 20% of his purse – and he knows that he is in the position of power. Escobedo doesn’t have any other big fight options on the table like this, he’ll need to deal with it, and just take the fight, regardless. While he is fighting at even more of a disadvantage, he would really only be hurting himself by not allowing the fight to move forward.
However, his team isn’t sold yet. They have been trying to come to terms with Broner, who apparently doesn’t seem to want to budge one inch.
The first proposal [and most of this comes from a source on hand for the entire affair] once Broner was steadfast that he wouldn’t try to make 130 pounds, was to have him lose two pounds, to get down to 131.5 pounds. That was declined. The second known proposal was that Broner weighs in on Saturday morning, and has to weigh no more than 140 pounds at that time. As of right now, that hasn’t been (publicly) accepted.
We’ll try to keep you posted with what ends up happening here. Obviously Escobedo’s team is concerned for their fighter, and rightfully so. If the fight does go on as planned, the title would only be at stake for Escobedo, as Broner has been stripped. If the fight ends up cancelled, Escobedo would still be in line to fight for the strap next – but one would imagine it would be in a much lower profile, lower money situation.
As mentioned, we’ll keep you posted with the ongoing saga and controversy of the Broner vs. Escobedo weigh-in.
