Adrien Broner – “The Problem” has a problem

By Stevie Ocallaghan - 08/28/2013 - Comments

broner555By Stevie Ocallaghan: I read in an article by Allan Fox that Adrien Broners trainer Mike Stafford doesn’t think his fighter gets the credit he deserves. His trainer is wrong. In my opinion, Broner gets way to much credit for what he has actually achieved.

Okay, being a 3-weight world champ sounds impressive, but look at the opponents. Vicente Rodriguez, no disrespect but not a household name. Eloy Perez?, a passed his best Vicente Escobedo.

His best performance for me was against Antonio DeMarco. After that fight I finally thought, even though I think 23 at the time was going to be a great fighter, but after that fight fought an 80/1 5’4″ guy in Gavin Rees. Rees was catching him at will. If Rees had any power at all, it would have made the fight much more interesting.

At welterweight he opted for the easiest fight available in Paulie Malignaggi.

No doubt Pauli has skills but again he has no power.

A past his best Malignaggi could easily have got the verdict, no real argument either way but that was a Malignaggi who scraped by Cano who lost a tight but unanimous decision against 41 year old Shane Mosley. Remember Mosleys last win was over 4 years ago.

Amir Khan and Ricky Hatton both stopped a prime Malignaggi, but Broner could only get a split decision against a guy who spends most of his time as a pundit now.

This for me is Broner’s problem. No guy at 147 would turn down a fight with Broner. Even at 140 I think out of all the top guys he could only possibly beat Danny Garcia. And that’s just maybe.

Lucas Matthysse, Amir Khan, obviously Floyd Mayweather Jr, Juan Manuel Marquez, Manny Pacquiao, Devon Alexander and Kell Brook would all with ease beat Broner. I think if the Marcos Maidana fight is made, Broner could also struggle. I also think now that after fighting at 147 he will struggle to go back to 135. He will have been comfortable at the weight and I think he will have lost his strength advantage struggling to get down to 135.

If Broner goes back to 135 I’d like to see him fight someone slick like Terence Crawford or a real puncher like Jose A Gonzalez. They would be good match-ups.

Broner is still young and can improve but as for what his trainer said, I think he gets all the credit he deserves.



Comments are closed.