Light heavyweight Marcus Browne resumes his winning ways, but what’s next now?
On the untelevised portion of the Fox Sport 1 undercard, light heavyweight boxer “Sir” Marcus Browne (24-1, 16 KO’s) got his first win in almost two years. He accomplished this by securing an unanimous decision victory over Denis “Drago’s Son” Grachev (20-13-1, 11 KO’s). When last in the ring, Browne suffered an unexpected technical decision loss to regular WBA World Light Heavyweight champion Jean Pascal. For the majority of the contest, Browne was in control of the clinch-heavy affair.
Regardless of his relative overall dominance, it was Pascal who managed to drop the New York native to the canvas three times in the fight. Things got drastically worse for Browne when he came up on the wrong side a tremendous clash of heads in the eighth round. Due to the severity of the gaping wound, the prizefight was near immediately stopped. With the action prematurely ended, the deficit caused by his trio of trips to the canvas sealed his doom. Browne lost the fight on the cards and Pascal was awarded the Interim WBA Light Heavyweight title. Browne immediately called for a rematch which obviously never came to pass.
On the one hand, it was good that Browne was able to shake off some rust and get back in the win column. On the other hand, this was far from an earth-shattering win. Not only was Grachev coming in off a loss himself, he is 1-5 in his last six bouts. Luckily for Browne however, he still is ranked #2 (WBC) and #7 (WBA). So it will be interesting to see what the New Yorker will do next.
WHO’S NEXT NOW?
One natural next option is to try to avenge his only professional loss with Jean Pascal. His Canadian conqueror still holds the Regular WBA World Light Heavyweight title and the #1 WBC light heavyweight ranking. Provided that he got the rematch and won, Browne would likely assume his #1 WBC spot and become the mandatory for the WBC and IBF World Light Heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev. Yet, similar to Browne, before his clash with Grachev, Pascal has not competed professionally in roughly a year and half. Given his age (38), this could be an indicator that Pascal is thinking about leaving the game.
Alternatively, perhaps Browne may try to bypass Pascal and seek to lure Beterbiev into a showdown straight away. Only time will tell what comes next for “Sir” Marcus Browne, but at least he is back in the win column and headed in the right direction.
By: Bakari Simpson
