Broner defeats Malignaggi; Mitchell decisions Banks; Bika beats Periban

By Boxing News - 06/22/2013 - Comments

broner45499By Jim Dower: Adrien Broner (27-0, 22 KO’s) had to struggle badly tonight to defeat WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (32-5, 7 KO’s) by a 12 round split decision on Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The judges scored it 115-113, 117-111 for Broner, and 115-113 for Malignaggi.

Broner did not look good at all in this fight as he didn’t throw enough punches. It appeared that he was just hoping to land a big shot that would hurt Paulie. When it didn’t happen, Broner didn’t have the work rate to put the fight away. He was too busy using the Mayweather shoulder role and just focusing on defense instead of his own offense.

Malignaggi did well enough to deserve to win the first five rounds as well as the 10th. I scored the fight a draw because Broner was getting so badly outworked in the first five rounds.

Broner did take control of the fight and dominate in rounds 6-9 and 11-12, but he gave away the 10th by getting outworked.

Malignaggi was the champion in this fight and he clearly won at least six rounds of the fight. I think he did enough to deserve to keep his title by the fight being scored a draw.

Malignaggi said after the fight “Don’t brag about taking my side piece. I thought I whipped him. He did the same thing in the De Leon fight. He fights in spurts. That 117-111 score was a joke. THe fight could have gone either way. He didn’t do enough to take the belt. It’s always the politically connected fighter that gets the decision.”

Broner said “He couldn’t hit me, he couldn’t hit me. He was shadow boxing.”

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In the co-feature bout, heavyweight Seth Mitchell (26-1-1, 19 KO’s) was able to do enough to beat Johnathon Banks (29-2-1, 19 KO’s) by a 12 round majority decision. The fight was a really bad one with very little action to speak of. Both fighters looked either too afraid or too tired to throw punches. The judges scored the fight 115-112, 117-109, 114-114.

Mitchell knocked Banks down with a right hand to the back of the head in the 2nd. Banks came back to stagger Mitchell in the 3rd. After the 3rd, Banks looked like he might have hurt his right hand or gassed out because he stopped throwing right hand punches and threw mostly jabs the rest of the way.

Mitchell looked timid, awkward and fragile-chinned throughout the fight. However, with Banks no longer throwing power punches from the 4th round, Mitchell was able to box his way to a painfully dull decision.

Golden Boy Promotions might want to think twice before they put either of these fighters on another of their cards because neither fighter was exciting to watch. The crowd booed the lack of action steadily from rounds 2 to round 12.

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Sakio Bika (32-5-2, 21 KO’s) defeated Mexican Marco Antonio Periban (20-1, 13 KO’s) by a 12 round majority decision to capture the vacant WBC super middleweight title. The final judges scores were 114-114, 116-112 and 115-113.

Bika was the busier fighter during most of the fight, as Periban wasted a lot of energy moving around without doing much.

Periban appeared to edge the 2nd and 3rd rounds with his big right hand power shots. However, Bika started really letting his hands go from the 4th round on as he took the fight to Periban and nailed him again and again. Both fighters still missed a lot of shots but Bika was definitely looked better.

In the 8th round, Periban finally stopped moving and decided to punch and the two fighters traded big shots in the last 15 seconds of the round with Bika getting the better of Periban. In the last part of the round, Periban suffered a cut on his scalp from a head-butt.

In the 9th, Bika dominated the round, but Periban flurried on him in the last 10 seconds to try and steal the round. The judges likely gave Periban this round, even thought it was Bika dominated 2 and 50 seconds of the round.

Periban failed to enough in rounds 10 and 11, as he started to look really tired and he was getting tagged by Bika’s big looping shots to the head. Bika was cut in the 11th round on the side of his left eye from a head-butt.

In the 12th round, both fighters traded big shots in a toe-to-toe battle. However, in the last 45 seconds of the round, Bika was able to land again and again with big shots as the tired Periban wasn’t able to connect with his sloppy punches.

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Other boxing results on the card:

Rau’shee Warren RTD 2 Jiovanne Fuentes
Julian Williams UD 8 Joachim Alcine
Robert Easter KO 3 Antoine Knight
Jamel Herring UD 4 Calvin Smith
Frank Galarza TKO 4 Romon Barber
Juan Dominguez KO 1 Brad Patraw
Marcus Browne RTD 2 Ricardo Campillo



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