Broner Likely Fighting in February, in Cinci

Adrien Broner, is he the guy who was on a short list of possible heirs apparent in the post Floyd Mayweather era, or  the one who had portions of limbs chewed off by a surlier shark when Marcos Maidana yanked him into deep waters when they made acquaintance last December, and AB went to the mat in rounds two and eight?

Still TBD…which is who the 25-year-old with a 29-1 (22 Kos) will face when he next gloves up. Which is when? I asked his trainer Mike Stafford when we might see AB in action next.

“It looks like the end of February, probably in Cincinnati, Ohio,” he told me. Broner is a Cinci guy, grew up and lives there still.

No names are in play yet, he said, at least not publicly. Stafford indicated it would be someone on the level of the last person Broner scrapped with, Emmanuel Taylor. He beat him via UD12 on September 6, for the record. Stafford told me he’s looking for 2015 to be a return to form year, and he wants AB to rumble with marquee names. “Who, that’s depending on the money and who’s available,” he said.

Indeed; we are all curious to see how things shake out, with Richard Schaefer and Oscar, and Haymon Boxing, and Roc Nation’s involvement in the sphere, and NBC and CBS boxing on cable, and ESPN’s decision to make boxing more prominent in their realm, etc etc. Here’s hoping that rigorous competition will result in 2015 being a better year in boxing than this one, which featured much less of the “best fighting the best” setups than any of us would like.

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