(Photo Credit: Stephanie Trapp / SHOWTIME) By Dan Ambrose: Former three division world champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (29-1, 22 KOs) had to battle hard to defeat Emmanuel Taylor (18-3, 12 KOs) by a harder than expected 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the U.S Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio. Broner sealed the victory with a 12th round knockdown. Broner landed a hard left hook that put Taylor down. The final judges’ scores were 115-112, 116-111, and 116-111.
The fight was very close with many rounds hard to pick a winner in. Broner clearly won the fight, but he should have beaten Taylor in a more impressive fashion given that this was a fringe contender that he was facing rather than a top contender like Matthysse or Viktor Postol.
Broner suffered a cut over his right eye in the 10th round from a head clash. Taylor did a good job in the 10th and 11th rounds. Taylor was also fighting well in the 12th round until he was caught with a big left hand shot by Broner.
“If it was up to me I’d fight him [Matthysee] tonight,” Broner said.
Broner said he was going to have his adviser Al Haymon set up a fight against Matthysse. The way that Broner looked tonight, he’d lose badly to Matthysse. Broner doesn’t look like he’s in Matthysse’s class.
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In a controversial stoppage, light welterweight contender Lucas Matthysse (36-3, 34 KOs) stopped previously unbeaten WBC Silver light welterweight champion Roberto Ortiz (31-1-1, 24 KOs) in the 2nd round.
Matthysse knocked Ortiz down with a hard left to the body that put Ortiz down. The referee Benjy Esteves Jr stopped the fight at the count of 9 instead of 10 for some reason. It looked like the referee had his mind made up that Ortiz wasn’t going to get back to his feet and when he suddenly did get up and appeared to beat the count Esteves Jr stopped the fight anyway. The fight was officially halted by Esteves Jr at 2:45 of the round.
It was pretty disappointing how the referee ruined what would have been a good fight. It’s hard to even understand how Esteves Jr could have blown the call so badly in stopping the fight at on the 9 count instead of the 10. It was just a really blow it move by the referee. The boxing fans booed the stoppage badly, and it was pretty sad for them because this was supposed to be the best fight on the card in the eyes of a lot of fans.
The fight was completely one-sided from start to finish with the faster, stronger and the busier Matthysse landed way more shots than Ortiz.
“Now I challenge Danny Garcia not to be a chicken and come and fight me a real boxer. For the title or without the title I’ll fight Danny Garcia. If I don’t get Danny, I’ll fight Adrien Broner or anybody else.”
Ortiz said after the fight “I thought I was up at nine. I was up at nine. I want a rematch.”
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Former IBF/WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (29-3, 22 KOs) looked good tonight in defeating Steve Upsher Chambers (24-4-1, 6 KOs) by a 10 round unanimous decision in his first fight of his comeback.
The final judges’ scores were 99-91, 99-91 and 99-91. There was no signs of shoulder problems for Berto, and his power and hand speed looked good.
Berto walked Upsher down all night long in hitting him with hooks, uppercuts and straight right hands. Upsher fought well in the first three rounds in landing occasional flurries. After the 3rd round, Upsher stopped throwing punches as much and this enabled Berto to tee off on him with big shots. Upsher showed a nice chin in taking a lot of bad punishment to the head.
Upsher took the shots and usually would come on stop in the last 10 seconds of many of the rounds.
The one thing that Berto needs work on is his defense. He was a lot by Upsher when he was letting his hands go. Berto is going to need to be more defensive in the future if he wants to be able to defeat the better fighters in the welterweight division like Keith Thurman, Kell Brook, Amir Khan, Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao. Those guys all look better than Berto at this point.
One positive that Berto showed tonight besides him staying off the ropes and not suffering any shoulder/arm injuries was in the stamina department. Berto’s stamina was real good tonight in him being able to stay at the center of the ring and fight hard for three minutes of each round. That’s a big departure from where Berto’s best in the past four years of his career. He’s gassed out against fighters like Robert Guerrero, Jesus Soto Karass and Victor Ortiz.
“The division’s wide open. There’s a lot of options out there,” Berto said after the fight.
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Other boxing results on the card
Rau’shee Warren UD 10 Jose Luis Araiza
Robert Easter KO 1 Roberto Acevedo
Raynell Williams UD 4 Evan Woolsey
Javonte Clark TKO 1 Matt Montalvo
Lamont Roach Jr MD 4 Rocco Espinoza
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