Rios picks Maidana to KO Broner

By Boxing News - 06/24/2013 - Comments

broner1234By Allan Fox: Brandon Rios says he wasn’t impressed with Adrien Broner’s 12 round split decision win over WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (32-5, 7 KO’s) last Saturday night, and he scored the fight a draw because he didn’t see Broner as having done enough to get the win, according to Hustleboss.com.

Rios thinks stable-mate Marcos Maidana (34-3, 31 KO’s) will knock the 23-year-old Broner out if that fight gets made by Golden Boy Promotions.

Rios said to Hustleboss.com “I think Maidana knocks him out. Broner’s easy to hit and Maidana can crack. Nobodies touched Broner’s chin yet.”

It’s still too early to know whether Broner will keep his WBA 147 lb. belt, and whether or not he’ll agree to fight the hard punching Maidana. ESPN is reporting that Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer would like Broner to take the fight with Maidana, but it’s ultimately up to Broner who he wants to fight. He and his adviser Al Haymon could very well choose to vacate the WBA title and go after different fighters and other titles.

Broner said as much in the post-fight press conference last Saturday night. He said he wants to capture another world title in a different weight class for his next fight, which means that he would likely be giving up his WBA 147 lb. title rather than facing Maidana or the winner of the Keith Thurman vs. Diego Chaves.

Broner and Hayman have obviously seen the Broner-Malignaggi fight a second time, and they both should have a pretty good idea by now whether it would be smart to stay at 147 or move down in weight to look for easier targets.

Malignaggi was able to handle Broner’s power and that’s definitely not a good sign because it’s highly unlikely that Malignaggi would have been able to go 12 rounds last Saturday had he been in with the likes of Thurman or Maidana. Those guys would have punished Malignaggi if he had stood in front of them like he did against Broner.

Without the big power at welterweight, Broner needs a better work rate so that he can at least outwork his opponents, but it doesn’t seem possible for to do that because he’s always been a fighter that throws few punches. Without a high work rate and without big power, it’s only a matter of time before Broner gets beaten at 147.

This is perhaps why he’ll say no to the Maidana fight and choose to move back down to 135 or possibly 140. Malignaggi doesn’t think 140 is a good idea for Broner because the best fighters at that weight punch like welterweights, and Broner would have problems, he feels.



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