By Dan Ambrose: If you had the chance to catch former three division world champion Adrien Broner’s post-fight interview last night after his victory over a very timid-looking John Molina (27-6, 22 KOs), you’ll have noticed that Broner blamed his 2013 defeat at the hands of Marcos Maidana on Broner fighting for the crowd.
In other words, the only reason why Broner lost to Maidana was because he was trying to make it exciting for the crowd rather than him simply looking to fight smart and get a victory anyway possible.
“The last time I fought for the crowd I took my first loss,” Broner said last night in explaining why he fought so defensively against Molina. “No disrespect to my fans who came out to see me fight today. I had to do what I had to go to get my victory today.”
By saying he lost to Maidana due to him fighting for the crowd in their 2013 fight, Broner is basically giving Maidana no credit for him having beaten him soundly on that night. I don’t know how Broner can say that though, because Maidana simply wasn’t going to let Broner get away from him no matter what he did in the ring.
Broner didn’t have the foot speed to get away from Maidana, and he wasn’t able to shut him down by holding him or putting him in head-locks like we saw Broner doing last night to nullify Molina’s offense. Maidana simply didn’t care what Broner tried in the fight, he was nailing him anyway.
I don’t see Broner having improved enough to beat Maidana, and I think he’ll take another loss if Broner’s adviser Al Haymon makes the mistake of putting him back in the ring with the Argentinian fighter. I don’t think Haymon is going to ever do that though no matter how often Broner brings up the Maidana fight in talking about wanting to avenge the defeat.
With Broner now blaming the defeat on a case of him fighting for the crowd instead of him losing to the better man, it looks like Broner has moved in a new direction of rewriting history. Instead of owning the defeat, Broner has explained it away as a case of him fighting for the crowd.
When you see a fighter doing something like this, it generally means that they’re moving on mentally and don’t plan on attempting to avenge the defeat. It’s well and good if this is something Broner is doing for his own sanity to distance himself from the loss, but he’s really kidding himself if he thinks he can make the boxing public believe that he only lost to Maidana because he was fighting for the fans.
Broner can repeat this mantra until he’s blue in the face and the boxing fans aren’t going to buy the excuse. They saw what happened on that night in 2013 with Broner getting badly beaten by Maidana, and they’re not going to believe Broner’s excuses that he’s now cooked up two years later.
Broner had no problem beating Molina, who simply wouldn’t throw any punches. It was one of the worst performances of Molina’s career, as he looked confused and petrified in there with Broner. Molina fought like he was afraid to get knocked out at any moment by Broner, who isn’t that big of a puncher compared to some fighters in the division.
Broner won the fight by the scores of 120-108, 120-108, and 118-110. In defeating Molina, we could have seen the last Molina in the big stage. It was his third straight defeat and it’s impossible to see any big time promoter wanting to take the risk of putting him in another high profile bout.
Comments are closed.