By Mark Havey: Last night we witnessed the controversial Adrien Broner, beat the equally outspoken Paulie Malignaggi via a split decision. Both men had engaged in a bitter war of words through the media and regularly inflicted insults upon each other on twitter. A source of leverage in this bitter feud happened to be a women who they had both been romantically involved with, to be polite.
The fight itself was frustrating at times. It wasn’t boring to watch, thanks to Paulie. I thought the ref should have done a better job at keeping order. Numerous fails committed by Broner should have been punished. Both men spent too much time talking to each other. Fans don’t pay to watch talking.
If the bans were punished then it would have changed the fight and we would have seen a draw. But the fact is that Broner was the better fighter, but not by much. The right man won although he shouldn’t have.
One thing I found frustrating about the fight was the work rate of Broner. It is shockingly bad. Malignaggi tried to make it a good fight to watch and Broner didn’t. I don’t care how good your accuracy rating is, you shouldn’t be allowed to win fights or get paid by fighting for 30 seconds of a three minute round. Fans are getting ripped off. Even Mayweather punches more than that.
Whilst we are on the subject of Floyd Mayweather. Broner is not his heir nor is he similar. Because Broner has made no attempt to put his own stamp on the style, he has turned into a poor imitation of Mayweather. Broner isn’t as accurate and Mayweather hardly gets hit. Broner gets hit by opponents of limited ability. Plenty of fighters use the shoulder role defence. They don’t get compared to Floyd because they have made it their own. Calling Broner a poor imitation of Mayweather isn’t meant to be demeaning. Anyone that copies Mayweather is going to fail.
Despite all of these negative comments I do think Broner is special, or at least he could be. His speed is good and his skills are admirable, he just doesn’t show it enough. A prime Malignaggi was beaten by Amir Khan and outclassed by Ricky Hatton, who happens to be a brawler. A older Malignaggi lost a split decision to Broner. So he has a long way to go, which is fine as he is young. But to fulfil his potential he does need to punch more.
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