"I had absolutely no problem with Adrien Broner calling out Floyd Mayweather. I think when you look at Floyd and you look at Adrien, and what Floyd has done in boxing and when you look at what Adrien is capable of doing in boxing, I think that fight makes a lot of sense. If we truly passing the torch, then let's pass the torch; put it up," stated world-class trainer Barry Hunter, who shared his thoughts on four-division former world champion Adrien Broner calling out retired undefeated former pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather immediately after his 9th round TKO victory over Ashley Theophane. Hunter, who helped train Broner for the fight, says dealing with Mayweather was just one of many psychological distractions that Broner had to deal with leading into the bout and it likely affected his ability to make weight.
"I think Adrien had a lot to deal with psychologically going into this last fight. Anybody that know us and know how we train know the training up there is legendary. You cannot just be physical; you gotta bring your mindset with you. It's very very hard to focus on your opponent, on your weight, and on your freedom at the same time, so I think that played a very, very big role in the whole weight issue," Hunter stated as he explained the reason why Broner was unable to make the 140-pound weight limit for the fight. "And I could kind of see him deflating a little bit towards the end. And that was my concern going into the fight. Physically, you can be fine, but if your mental is not there, then that can be very detrimental to you as a fighter going into a fight like that. And then you factor in the whole Floyd thing and he's going against one of Floyd's fighters, that's a big deal as well."
Hunter added, "I know a lot of fans and media scribes, who have never had to get on a scale and make a weight, will look at that .4 pounds and think to themselves, 'He should have just went and lost the weight.' Let me tell you, that .4 could be like 10 pounds easily. And I say that because, when you lose...and in Adrien's case, what probably happened more than likely, even though we were grinding the way we were, like I said, he was battling other demons at the same time. Therefore, coming down the stretch, if you lose, 10, 15 to 20 pounds, it all depends on how many days or weeks that you lost this weight in. More than 2 pounds of weight loss per week could be detrimental to your performance. And you look at the weight that he had to lose and it was more water weight than it was mass. And inside, you have your salt, your potassium, your electrolytes, and everything that makes the body function. Not to mention, when you deplete yourself of water like that, your organs shrink. And definitely that main organ, which is your brain, shrinks. Not only was it nerve racking, it had became dangerous. So I knew when I watched him, he couldn't sweat; nothing was left. Even though he had 2 hours to try and burn it off, who's to say he couldn't burn it off, but psychology, I knew he was broken at that time."
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