Maidana conquers Broner: All aboard the hype train

By Jamie Eskdale - 12/15/2013 - Comments

maidana45111By Jamie Eskdale: On Saturday night the hype train rolled out of the station in San Antonio Texas packed with dreams of being the next big star. 47 minutes later it crashed into the buffers destroying those dreams.

In this case the hype train was Adrien ‘The Problem’ Broner and those buffers were Marcos ‘el Chino’ Maidana.

This was supposed to be a step up for Broner sure. However, this was never supposed to happen. Broner like his idol Floyd Mayweather Jr., live by their unbeaten record and this could turn out to be so damaging for him. This wasn’t some unbeaten unknown quantity he was up against. The blueprint was already there to defeat Maidana. Although in all fairness to the Argentine, he looks a fighter greatly improved under the tutelage of Robert Garcia.

Someone as great as Broner always tells us he is would just have to turn up and execute the game plan.

In reality it never quite turned out like that. So why was Broner hyped up so much in the first place. Who was to blame.

Was it us the boxing fans who helped promote this?

Was it the TV networks desperate for ratings?

Was it his Promoters seeing a window where Floyd Mayweather is nearing the end, was it they seen an opportunity where they could build Broner, someone who polarizes opinion just as much if not more than Mayweather, into the new face of boxing with the same blueprint that Mayweather has used so effectively, the unbeaten record?

The truth of the matter is it was probably a combination of all of the above. At this point I have a confession to make. I actually quite liked all of his antics, the rapping to the ring, the trash talking and all the silly interviews all added up to making his fights and promotions entertaining.

Even looking past all of this it is easy to see a lot of it was for show. The young man does a lot of community work and helps youngsters that goes unnoticed by fans.

Back to the point of the matter though. For anyone who knows boxing who watched Broner v Malignaggi and even against Daniel Ponce De Leon it was glaringly obvious that it was only a matter of time before Broner would be found out. All of his deficiencies though seemed to be ignored by the mainstream and what we were fed was the line of how we had the next PPV star on our hands. How Broner was going to be the face of boxing for a long number of years. Although by no means finished, this defeat will certainly dent him and he will have to rethink his strategy.

What next for Broner? A drop back down to lightweight and a few confidence boosting wins? Would his ego allow it?

Even a drop down to light welterweight is fraught with danger with Danny Garcia the recognised champion at the weight. These two guys have history and it could provide an intriguing back story.

Lucas Matthysse I believe would give him absolute nightmares and would have to be avoided. Same goes for Ruslan Provodnikov.

Whatever route Broner chooses he will need to make the right choice.

What lessons can we learn from this? For those of us who bought into the Broner hype, maybe be a little more less trusting of what we are told and the hype we are fed. Maybe do a little research on these guys who are hyped and watch some past fights.

For those of us who knew all along? Well I suppose congratulations are in order for not boarding the hype train.

Follow me on Twitter @jamieeskdale83



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