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WBA welter champion Adrien Broner is clearly a very talented fighter; we all know what he is about and what he does, and he does it very well. The question here is whether he can do what he has always done against a big punching welterweight.
Had Paulie Malignaggi or Gavin Rees possessed some venom in their punches, it may have been a different result when they faced Broner.
I am not saying Broner would have lost, but it may have brought out a different side of his game. A side that was not content in sitting on the shoulder rolls and throwing clever, snappy counters.
Now why would he want to change the way he fights when it has been working so well for him?
He wouldn’t, but I am hoping Marcos Maidana leaves him with no choice.
Since the step up to Welterweight, Broner has fought a non-puncher in Malignaggi, and as technically gifted as Malignaggi is, Broner knew he had nothing to fear in what was being thrown his way.
Same with Rees, not a concussive puncher at lightweight, and previous opponent at lightweight, Antonio De Marco, may have had some snap but was so open and so right for Broner that the fight looked easy.
If you are going to be a counter puncher who works off of clever defensive shots, then you need to control the pace or you will get walked down.
Mayweather, to whom Broner is so often compared with, is so good at doing what he does because he controls the pace and gets opponents to fight at his rhythm, therefore nullifying whatever they had in offence in the first place.
Rees and Malignaggi didn’t look bad in their fights against Broner, they didn’t look like they had been put back in their box, they looked like they fancied the job and kept throwing.
Okay, Broner stopped Rees, and it was a good finish. However, “he Problem” couldn’t stop Paulie throwing and force the stoppage though, something that been previously accomplished by Ricky Hatton and Amir Khan, so we know it can be done.
Maidana has said that he will come in and throw lots of punches against Broner, and we know the Argentinian is a big puncher with an 84% KO ratio. He is an experienced rugged fighter who says he will put it on Broner early and consistently.
His record stands at 34-3-0. Broner, 27-0-0, also has a high KO ratio at 81%.
The difference is that Maidana has been campaigning at light welter/welter for his career and Broner has been at super feather and lightweight, where he was clearly a puncher but we will have to see if he can carry it up at welter.
Maidana can be out boxed; in fact his two losses were to superior boxers Amir Khan and Andreas Kotelnik. I think that Broner will outbox Maidana.
It would just be nice to see Broner taken out of his comfort zone and dragged into the trenches first, and Maidana just might be the man to do it.
