By Allan Fox: Paulie Malignaggi thinks Adrien Broner (27-1, 22 KO’s) has no business fighting in the welterweight division, and he’s got some major concerns about his ring intelligence and not to mention his overall talent after the beating he took against Marcos Maidana last Saturday night the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
Malignaggi thinks Broner need to move down to 140 if he wants to avoid similar losses like the one he experienced against Maidana. Malignaggi didn’t mention having Broner move back down to 135, and that could mean that he has doubts whether the 24-year-old can still make that weight without dramatic lifestyle changes in his eating habits and his partying.
“I have nothing to gain fighting him [Broner] now,” Malignaggi said to ESPN. “He’s [Broner] better off dropping down to 140 pounds though. There’s a risk his confidence won’t be the same…He’s too stationary and overall just not very intelligent as a decision maker when the heat is on.”
There are a lot of big punchers in the 140 lb. division with power similar to Maidana. Lucas Matthysse, Ruslan Provodnikov and Danny Garcia would all be very tough fights for Broner, and the chances are high that Broner would be in over his head in those fights unless he changed his game to be a little more mobile.
Broner did make some questionable decisions in deciding to stay in front of Maidana after getting knocked down in the 2nd. The only real change in Broner’s game following the knockdown was that he held him for the remainder of the round to ride out that one rough stretch. But in the next round, Broner was back to standing in front of Maidana looking to exchange with him.
One thing that may have saved Broner from being knocked out in the fight was his pushing that he did. Broner gave Maidana a lot of hard shoves each time he would get in close looking to land. The referee Lawrence Cole warned Broner about the pushing off, but he continued to let him push for the entire fight. Had Broner been penalized for it then it’s possible it would have been a different fight. But it’s possible that Broner would have eventually lost more points or even been disqualified. He probably wouldn’t have stopped shoving Maidana because that one of the only things that Broner could do to keep Maidana off of him.
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