By Keith Idec

As Marcus Browne and Thomas Williams Jr. jawed at each other on the stage Friday, Williams’ supporters screamed about Browne from the background.

They yelled, ‘You lost your last fight!’ over and over after Browne and Williams weighed in for their 10-round light heavyweight fight Saturday night in Cincinnati. They referred to Browne’s controversial split-decision victory over Radivoje “Hot Rod” Kalajdzic in an eight-rounder 10 months ago at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Browne overcame a sixth-round knockdown to win on two of three scorecards that night (76-74, 76-75, 74-76). Like his entourage, Williams was adamant Friday that Kalajdzic beat Browne.

“I was telling him he know my work,” Williams said. “I was telling him he know I whoop ass. And he knows in his last fight he got his ass whooped, and he’s gonna get his ass whooped on Saturday.”

However Williams feels about Browne’s win against Kalajdzic, Williams definitely lost his last fight.

Williams (20-2, 14 KOs), of Fort Washington, Maryland, plans to bounce back from his fourth-round knockout loss to WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (28-1, 23 KOs) by becoming the first professional fighter to beat Browne (18-0, 13 KOs), a 2012 Olympian from Staten Island, New York. The hard-hitting Stevenson floored Williams once apiece in the first and fourth rounds of their July 29 fight in Quebec City, Canada.

Browne wasn’t bothered by Williams trash talk, nor that of his supporters.

“His team can’t fight for him,” said Browne, who’ll end a 10-month layoff against Williams in a battle between southpaws. “They doing all the hyping up. At the end of the day, it’s gonna be me and him. He said I know his work. He know my work. He know what time it is. I’m not really gonna talk. I’m gonna take care of business tomorrow and let my hands do the talking.”

The Browne-Williams fight will be the first of three broadcast by Showtime on Saturday night from Xavier University’s Cintas Center (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT).

The telecast will be headlined by a 10-round welterweight bout that’ll pit Cincinnati’s Adrien Broner (32-2, 24 KOs) against Adrian Granados (18-4-2, 12 KOs), of Cicero, Illinois. The tripleheader also will include Russia’s David Avanesyan (22-1-1, 11 KOs), who’ll defend his WBA world welterweight title against Washington, D.C.’s Lamont Peterson (34-3-1, 17 KOs).

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.