Adrien Jerome "The Problem" Broner - type specimen for weight bullies.

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Bear in mind that Broner himself admitted in 2013 during an ESPN interview with Dan Rafael that he is a "natural welterweight" and had considered beginning his pro career there - before realizing he could drain as far down as 135 or even 130 and not suffer ill effects (at least in his late teens and early twenties) from the cuts and overnight rehydration. He originally started at flyweight in the youth amateurs, but as of his pro debut in 2008 was already - by his own reckoning, from the horse's mouth - walking around in the 150s.

So never mind his WBC lightweight and WBO super featherweight reigns of terror - where the size advantage over the natural denizens of those divisions was often glaringly obvious if not downright absurd looking - he was boiling to even make 140lbs (against the Molinas, Taylor, Allakhverdiev, Theophane and Mikey García). He's a welterweight - and his WW record is 4-4-1. His best victory at that weight? A past-prime LWW in Paulie Malignaggi - and besides the one crooked wide scorecard from Al Haymon puppet Tom Schreck, it was a close contest with Broner barely scraping by)

An utter fraud, who successfully talked his way into the conversation as Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s p4p heir apparent. Once he started facing opponents his own size it soon became very clear that he not only wasn't a great talent at 147lbs (where he always belonged), but a not-even-good one. Mediocre.

It's also laughable that he painted himself as the second coming of FMJ, considering that he never in his career possessed a fraction the footwork and ring IQ that Pretty Boy had. If anything, he was more of a miniature latter-day James Toney clone - with his feet cemented in the middle of the ring, relying on quick hand speed and slick in-the-pocket slipping ability (areas where again, he doesn't measure up to Toney or Mayweather...but at least these were strengths, whereas movement wasn't)

His mental unraveling in the dozen years since the humbling by Maidana has been shocking to witness. While going 8-5-1 in the ring over that span, he has been taking L after L outside of it - regularly making headlines for all the wrong reasons and becoming something of a TMZ mascot/laughingstock. Unsurprisingly, when you talk yourself up as the very best there is, the fall off that lofty pedestal is going to be hard. Going from branding oneself "About Billions" to being a penniless grifter getting kicked off Cam'ron's podcast for sexually harassing the female co-host and within that same month being caught trying to dine and dash from a restaurant is a hell of a decline.

 

Proponents of day-before weigh-ins and/or people who moan that "weight bullies in boxing don't exist" - I would implore you to go watch Broner's title runs at 130 and 135. Read the man's own words admitting that he is a natural 147lber, at least.

You really think a guy like him becoming a 2-division champion because he was (for a time) able to get away with drastic weight cuts isn't a black eye on the sport?

 

(that guy's tweet, btw, is technically slightly off - Broner went 26-0 at or under the 135lb limit. He was 27-0 after defeating Malignaggi via SD in his welter debut. He is 9-5-1 above 135...)

 

You are incorrect.

 

I'll now elaborate on why:

Pacquiao wasn't cutting when he was a 16 year old in 1995 making his pro debut. He was a tiny street urchin, and a legit light fly. Within a year, he outgrew 108 and probably belonged at super fly as early as '96, but yes, continued to cut to flyweight until as late as '99. He lost his WBC belt on the scales against Singsurat coming in at 113lb and still got knocked out - showing that indeed, he tried for too long to make a weight that he didn't belong at. Realistically he should have been campaigning at 115 for the last few years of the nineties. Instead, when he made his jump, it was from fly all the way up to super bantam.

Without weight cutting, a more natural progression for Pacquiao would have been:

1995 - light fly
1996 - flyweight for a bout or two, full-time super fly by year's end
97/98 - migrating from super fly to bantam
98/99 - migrating from bantam to super bantam

He did overstay at 112, but it was still part of an upward trajectory from being a comfortable light fly sixteen year old to a comfortable super bantam twenty year old.

It's still different from Broner, by his pro debut already walking around at 150+, and admittedly contemplating turning pro at welter but realizing he could cut dangerously low without collapsing. (just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. You can smoke two packs a day for a decade and not get lung cancer, but...)

Broner having championships at super feather and lightweight is as ridiculous as Andre Ward somehow managing to make 147lb safely in 2008 and beating Antonio Margarito to become champ. You would argue 'well he made the weight fair & square, so there's nothing wrong with it, and he isn't a weight bully". Well, you're wrong. With same-day weigh-ins there is zero chance that Ward would ever, even by some fluke, be able to cut to 147lbs. There is also zero chance that Broner would be able to ever in his life make 135 and 130.

Now, you can say with same day weigh-ins that Pacquiao would have been forced up past 112 a few years earlier - and yes, that's valid. I'm not saying that would have been a problem as consequence of reverting to same-day weigh-ins. It would, in fact, have been for the best.

What you can't say, however, is that Pacquiao (who maintained a linear upward trajectory starting at 106 and just happened to linger overlong at one division) is "every bit as much a weight bully" as Broner (a full-fledged natural welter by 2008, who cynically targeted super feathers and lightweights for the first five years of his career knowing he could game the system to have a massive size advantage). They are very clearly different things.

 

I don't understand this willingness to blindly cape for weight bullies that some of you have. Are you and @Lesion of Doom being purposely obtuse just for trolling purposes, or...?

Most fighters are in a spectrum of having their walking around weight, and their "fighting" weight. It's usually a small, reasonable amount, ten pounds at the most. A boxing division or two, at the most. If you are year-round weighing over a hundred and fifty pounds between fights while regularly staying active in the gym (and barring some "Ricky Fatton" levels of ballooning and discipline abandonment), you are not a natural lightweight, let alone super feather. Period.

Walking around in the 150s means you should be cutting to at the lowest light welter. Realistically more like 147. A few years into his career Broner was probably walking around at (and rehydrating to) closer to 160...meaning he should have been fighting at 147 and 154.

Broner's opponents at 130 probably mostly rehydrated to between 135 and 140lbs...putting on less than half of what Broner would pack back on overnight. You can't be serious defending this?