The Blueprint: How to destroy Adrien Broner

By James Connell21 - 09/08/2013 - Comments

broner0009By James Connell: Oscar De La Hoya has borne a lot of flak recently due to his controversial statement, in which he claimed that he had ‘laid the blueprint’ in regards to defeating Floyd Mayweather Jr. This declaration does seem odd, considering he lost the fight. If I’m honest, on first viewing I had De La Hoya scraping a victory, but in reflection, with several years passed and emotions run dry, I can handle the Mayweather split decision: it’s probably fair.

I’m not sure personally that there is a specific blueprint that could unlock Mayweather’s current game; he is simply too technically gifted, physically fit and intelligent to fall down to a simple 2 + 2 = 4 type plan. De La Hoya’s plan clearly was to brawl with Mayweather; to be the busier fighter and throw a lot of punches, thus dictating the pace of the fight. De La Hoya failed in this, Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto also. Mayweather’s defensive skill and counter punching ability was simply too much for these men. His hand speed and footwork allowed him to get his punches away and sap the energy of the opposing fighter.

The upcoming fight will be the biggest test of the De La Hoya ‘blueprint’. With Canelo set to outweigh Mayweather by as much as twenty pounds on the night, this is surely the most likely chance any fighter will ever have of bullying an in-prime-condition Floyd Mayweather. If Mayweather does what he does though, the unanimous decision is almost guaranteed, and the ‘blueprint’ once-and-for-all will be regarded as nonsense.

The Golden Boy’s blueprint however is not completely nonsensical; it may not be enough to beat the real Floyd Mayweather, but it IS enough to strip his ‘little brother’ of his unbeaten record and World titles.

Adrien Broner has a lot of admirable attributes as a fighter. His defence, partly due to his fantastic deployment of the shoulder-roll, is really formidable. He catches a lot of punches on that left shoulder, and allied with his stiff straight right – definitely his signature punch –, scoring against him can be difficult without opening yourself to his counters. He carries a huge punch in the 130 and 135 pound divisions, though in his sole fight at 147, he didn’t carry his power through quite so comfortably.

But Adrien Broner’s key problem is not a lack of punching power: it is a lack of activity that has plagued his most difficult fights thus far in his young career. He is undoubtedly an accurate puncher, but too often he boxes on his heels like a March Hare; too often he relies on the single hard counter, as opposed to setting three-to-four punch combinations up with a strong jab. Broner has often looked one paced, which, alongside his sometimes less than respectful attitude, has alienated himself from a decent amount of fight fans.

I would argue that the blueprint detailing how to beat Broner is already on tape. Daniel Ponce de Leon beat Adrien Broner. Sure, the decision went Broner’s way, but he lost that fight. I can understand the decision going for Broner against Malignaggi (I didn’t agree with it though, as I discussed in an earlier article HERE), but against Ponce de Leon, he was too lazy, and for too many rounds was dictated to by the more experienced southpaw.

Adrien Broner is a fine boxer with a lot of talent, but if he ever wants to come close to Mayweather, he’ll need to eliminate the weaknesses he has; weaknesses that someone like the extremely busy and aggressive Marcos Maidana will exploit brutally.



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