Adrien Broner vs. Gavin Rees on February 16th at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey

By Boxing News - 12/27/2012 - Comments

gavin rees weigh inBy Scott Gilfoid: WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner (25-0, 21 KO’s) will be facing former WBA World light welterweight champion Gavin Rees (37-1-1, 18 KO’s) in a mismatch on February 16th at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, according to Steve Kim.

This is a sick mismatch. Rees, #2 WBA, #5 WBO, #15 IBF, stands absolutely no chance against the 23-year-old Broner. I thought the Broner vs. Ricky Burns fight was a terrible mismatch, but this one even worse than that. Rees, 32, is going to get drilled into the canvas within four or five rounds.

The Rees-Broner fight isn’t surprising, though, because this fight is being put together to prime the pump for a Broner vs. Burns fight later on in 2013, if Burns ever steps up to the plate and agrees to take the fight with Broner. That’s a big IF because I suspect that Burns won’t agree to fight Broner due to the certainty of him getting knocked out.

The Broner vs. Rees fight will get the British boxing public interested in a potential Burns-Broner fight, because it’s going to look bad when Broner smashes Rees to smithereens in February, and then some British fans will likely see Burns as the guy that can set things right by avenging Ree’s defeat. Of course, that won’t happen because Broner will only destroy Burns as well, and it’ll make the pain even worse.

I really wish the Rees-Broner mismatch could be avoided, because this isn’t an interesting fight. Rees is so far out of his class it’s not even funny. Broner will literally toy with this over-matching punching bag before knocking him out within four rounds. The only way I see this fight getting to the 6th round is if Broner decides to carry Rees for the heck of it to torture him like a cat would with a mouse.

This fight wouldn’t be necessary if Burns had only stepped up and agreed to fight Broner on February 16th like he was trying to get him to. It would have saved Broner a mismatch against Rees and he could have moved up to light welterweight that much quicker to start taking quality fighters that can give him a test. Rees and Burns are easy mismatches for Broner, and it’s frankly a waste of time to even fight them in my view. You don’t like to see talents like Broner burning up his career facing weak opposition.

The Broner-Rees fight may interest British boxing fans in a Broner vs. Burns fight, but it won’t have any effect at all with American fans, who will have no clue who Rees is other than some guy that doesn’t belong in the same ring with Broner. American fans who watch Broner demolish Rees won’t get excited about seeing him destroy another Brit. If anything, they’ll likely be turned off at seeing Broner obliterate two British fighters back to back. I see this as a bad career move for Broner because it’ll only help him attract interest from one country and will hurt him in his own country.



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