Saturday night on HBO Boxing, Adrien Broner scored a 5th round TKO win against Vicente Escobedo, putting an end to this long and drawn out saga. The real story wasn’t the fight itself, of course, but the drama that began with the weigh-in on Friday afternoon. With Broner 3.5 pounds overweight, and making no attempt to make weight, the fight was on the verge of being cancelled.
In fact, until about 4 pm on Saturday afternoon, the fight actually seemed to have been called off. Finally, team Escobedo agreed to move forward with the bout, taking an undisclosed sum of money from Broner’s cut – projected in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and at least doubling his original purse.
Broner vs. Escobedo Photos
Once in the ring, already with a huge talent and skill advantage in his favor, and now with a huge weight advantage as well, it didn’t take long for Broner to assert himself. Escobedo was game, and tried to get things going for himself, but Broner was just way too much.
In the 5th, facing a barrage of punches, Escobedo’s trainer Joel Diaz brought an end to the affair. Official time was 2:32 of the 5th round.
In earlier action, big-punching prospect Keith Thurman stopped Orlando Lora at 1:38 of the sixth round. Thurman improves to 18-0 with 17 knockouts, and is a face to watch in the welterweight division.
Ultimately, with the Broner vs. Escobedo results done and over with, I’m happy that we can all move on from this saga. It wasn’t pretty. For Broner, already rubbing scores of boxing fans the wrong way, he didn’t do himself any favors but pulling such a diva move at this stage of his career. For Escobedo, he’ll likely still get to fight for the vacant WBO strap in the division, potentially against Juan Carlos Burgos.
