By Chris Williams: As previously reported on Boxing News 24, former three division world champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (30-2, 22 KOs) will be fighting former WBA light welterweight Khabib “The Hawk” Allakhverdiev (19-1, 9 KOs) in the 26-year Broner’s home city of Cincinnati on October 3rd at the U.S. Bank Arena.

The fight will be televised on Showtime, and the World Boxing Association “regular” 140lb title will be at stage in the fight. The Broner- Allakhverdiev fight became official today, August 28th.

It’s a good fight and puts the No.2 WBA Broner in excellent position to win his fourth division world title against the No.5 WBA Allakhverdiev. Broner and the 24-year-old Allakhverdiev will be fighting for the WBA title that was recently stripped from Top Rank champion Jessie Vargas, who lost his WBA title when he opted to face Tim Bradley for the WBO interim 147lb title last June.

Vargas could have kept his WBA 140lb title if he’d paid the sanctioning fee, but he opted not to. Vargas wound up losing the fight to Bradley by a 12 round decision. Rather than moving back down in weight to 140, Vargas has decided to stay at welterweight to try and make a go of it at that weight.

Broner had a minor setback in his last fight against Shawn Porter in losing a 12 round decision last June. Broner would have won the fight if he’d thrown more punches. All he would have had to do to get the victory over Porter was to increase his work rate by another 50 punches per round. Broner was averaging only 25 punches thrown in each round, and this enabled Porter to get the victory based on Broner’s low work rate.

“I’m excited to be back in Cincinnati taking on a tough world class fighter who is going to bring it,” said Broner. “This fight means the world to me. It’s a huge deal to have the chance to be a four-division world champion at 26 years old.”

It’s a fight that is very crucial for Broner to win. The boxing world will forgive Broner for losing to talented fighters like Porter and Marcos Maidana, but if he loses to a mediocre one like Allakhverdiev, it’s going to look really bad for Broner. A defeat to someone like Allakhverdiev would mean that Broner would have to do something dramatic like dumping his long time trainer Mike Stafford and looking for a better known trainer that can fix the glaring flaws in his game.

Broner should probably have already given the boot to Stafford after his loss to Maidana, but he stubbornly stuck with him, and unfortunately we’re still seeing the same flaws in Broner’s game in his fights since his loss to Maidana.

If Broner gets beaten by Allakhverdiev and he continues to stick it out with Stafford, then there’s a good chance that Broner’s career will effectively be over as far as him being a major player in the sport. You don’t lose to guys like Allakhverdiev if you want to be taken seriously.

“Broner is a good boxer, he is a fast and talented guy, but as a man I don’t have anything good to say about him,” said Allakhverdiev. “I am looking forward to a world championship winning performance and I know that if he tries to do something to get in my head, to approach me or to push me that I will be as restrained as possible and save my anger for fight night.”

Broner will of course be looking to get inside of the head of the Russian Allakhverdiev in the run up to their October 3rd fight. If Allakhverdiev can’t handle the mental gamesmanship from Broner, then that’s on him.

We’re likely to see a lot of ring rust from Allakhverdiev, who hasn’t fought since he was beaten by Jessie Vargas last year in April 2014 in a fight in which he lost his WBA 140lb title in losing by a 12 round unanimous decision. I’m not sure why Allakhverdiev hasn’t fought since that defeat, but by the time he does get back inside the ring on October 3rd, he’ll have been outside of the ring for a year and half.