Broner: Pacquiao needs me if he’s fighting on ESPN

Adrien Broner has his hands full with an upcoming July 29 fight against Mikey Garcia on Showtime, but he can’t stop himself from being “AB,” telling CBS Sports that he’d love to fight a UFC star on the Mayweather-McGregor card, joking about fighting Steph Curry, and, perhaps more seriously, once again calling out Manny Pacquiao:

"Pacquiao need me. Pacquiao, give me a call man. Bob Arum, y'all need me. It's not looking too good if y'all fighting back on ESPN man. ... I think after my great performance on July 29, I think that will spark the fuel with me and Pacquiao. And I think that we are going to make it happen.”

Broner (33-2, 24 KO) clearly isn’t impressed by the news that Top Rank has secured a deal with ESPN to air Manny Pacquiao’s July 1 fight in Australia against Jeff Horn, and clearly doesn’t care that it’s part of a bigger venture between the promoter and the network. To Broner, fighting off pay-per-view and premium cable is shameful. And to be fair, we should probably wait and see how this Top Rank/ESPN thing plays out before we start counting our chickens and such.

Still, it’s hard not to wonder if Broner is overlooking the big issue with Mikey Garcia (36-0, 30 KO), an undefeated fighter who will be moving up from 135 pounds, where he’s only fought briefly, but impressively. Garcia is in the minds of many a clear favorite in this fight — in fact, Bovada has Garcia listed at -500, with Broner at +350 — and Broner can ill afford to be less than 100% focused on the task at hand.