After it was revealed that Omar Figueroa will not be fighting Adrien Broner on April 21, Showtime and Premier Boxing Champions scrambled to find a suitable opponent. Well they found one in the form of a former welterweight world champion.
The new main event for the April 21 Showtime event will pit Broner against Jessie Vargas at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The fight will be contested at a 144-pound catchweight. The card will be the third event at the Barclays Center for Showtime in 2018. In the press release sent out by PBC to Fightful, Vargas said he is excited believes Broner is an exciting, yet beatable boxer.
"This is a fight that should garner a lot of attention from boxing fans and they deserve a fight like this. This is a fight that will have a lot of fireworks. I respect Broner and his skills, but he's very beatable. The fight was presented to me and I didn't think twice about taking it," Vargas said.
Already announced for the card is the return of former IBF super featherweight champion Gervonta Davis and the interim WBC middleweight title fight between Jermall Charlo and Hugo Centeno Jr. The Charlo vs. Centeno fight was originally supposed to take place on March 3 in Brooklyn but an injury to Centeno forced the bout to be postponed.
Vargas returned from a 13-month break last year after losing his WBO welterweight title to Manny Pacquiao in 2016, defeating Aaron Herrera. Broner is coming off a loss to Mikey Garcia last year with that fight also taking place at the Barclays Center.
Figueroa suffered a shoulder injury and was forced to withdraw from the fight. Figueroa was coming off a win from last summer, retiring Robert Guerrero on a PBC on FOX main event in Long Island, New York.
