Broner’s stock drops with unimpressive win over Malignaggi

By Boxing News - 06/23/2013 - Comments

broner#1By Dan Ambrose: We found out tonight that Adrien Broner (27-0, 22 KO’s) isn’t going to be the next Floyd Mayweather Jr. We also found out that he couldn’t even conclusively beat what many boxing fans felt was the weakest of the welterweight champions in WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (32-5, 7 KO’s).

Broner got the victory by a 12 round split decision by the scores 115-113 and 117-111, and 115-113 for Malignaggi. Broner did not shine in this fight or even come close to it. If you want to make excuses for why Broner looked so bad, you can say that he didn’t carry his power up from the lightweight division or he was having problems with the weight.

It’s possible that both of those things or true, but the fact remains that Broner didn’t fight well enough tonight to prove that he was better than Malignaggi, and surely didn’t fight well enough to show that he’s the next super star in the division.

Malignaggi was able to hit Broner a lot tonight. Granted, Malignaggi missed a lot of his punches but it didn’t matter because he still landed more punches than Broner and made his look really bad.

Golden Boy Promotions is going to have to be very careful with who they match Broner up with from now on because he’s talking about wanting to stay at welterweight, and he was even asking the fans to pick out his next opponent for him. I got the sense that Broner knew he didn’t impress and he was going to try and make it up to the fans and himself by facing whoever they want him to.

The fans would obviously pick out guys that Broner couldn’t or wouldn’t fight like Mayweather Jr. or Manny Pacquiao. Those fights aren’t going to happen. But Broner can fight Keith Thurman or Marcos Maidana, and at this point I don’t think he can beat either one of those.

Tonight had to have been a major buzz kill for Golden Boy Promotions with the co-feature bout between Seth Mitchell and Johnathan Banks being such a terrible fight, and Broner showing that he doesn’t have the talent to become the next Mayweather. Can you picture boxing fans wanting to pay to see Broner on PPV after tonight’s fight?

Broner probably isn’t even the best lightweight in the division anymore now that Terrence Crawford his emerged. I would favor Crawford over Broner if that fight were made today.



Comments are closed.