Broner: I’m not afraid of Molina’s power, I’m not running

By Boxing News - 03/05/2015 - Comments

broner444By Dan Ambrose: Former three division world champion Adrien Broner (29-1, 22 KOs) will be in the ring this Saturday night against lightweight slugger John Molina Jr (27-5, 22 KOs) in a 12 round bout on NBC as part of adviser Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champion series at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This is Broner’s third consecutive average opponent, as Haymon is trying to rebuild the 25-year-old Broner’s career after his loss to Marcos Maidana in September 2013.

That was a fight in which Broner was knocked down twice in losing a 12 round decision. Since that fight, Broner has beaten 5’5” Carlos Molina and Emanuel Taylor. Broner failed to impress in either of those fights.

“This the time where he’s [Molina] going to be on the bad end of the stick,” Broner said during Thursday’s final press conference. It doesn’t matter how big the ring is. We’re not running from John Molina. I’m not scared of power. We’ll see Saturday night, I’m stopping John Molina and I’m putting my word on that.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBpyzjfdfuU

Broner should be concerned with Molina’s punching power, because if he’s able to land his shots, he’s going to hurt him. We already saw Broner get knocked down twice by Marcos Maidana in their fight in 2013.

If Molina is able to connect with his left hook, he could flatten Broner once or twice. Broner has good recuperative powers, so I expect him to get back up, but he’s going to lose points with boxing fans if he gets dropped by Molina due to him not being the best fighter in the 140 pound division or even close to being the best.

It’s unclear when Broner’s adviser Al Haymon plans on stepping him up against the truly best fighters in the light welterweight division. Thus far, Broner has fought a 2nd tier Carlos Molina and a fringe contender in Emmanuel Taylor. Molina isn’t even ranked in the top 15 at light welterweight, and he’s coming off of back to back losses to Humbeto Soto and Lucas Matthysse.

You can understand why Haymon would want to play it extra careful with Broner, because if he matches him too tough by putting him in with someone like Matthysse and/or Viktor Postol, Broner would likely lose. Even someone like Humberto Soto, Chris Algieri, and Ruslan Provodnikov would likely give Broner tremendous problems.

It would be interesting to see Broner face Terence Crawford, but that’ a fight that likely won’t ever take place due to Crawford being a Top Rank fighter.

“I haven’t looked my best because I haven’t stopped my opponents, but when you look at those fights I outclassed every opponent in front of me. As long as I keep winning, that’s what matters. John Molina is going to come to fight, but they all come to fight, he’s not going to beat me,,” Broner said.

Broner defeated Carlos Molina and Emmanuel Taylor in his last two fights, but he didn’t even come close to outclassing them. Broner looked poor in both fights, and it definitely wasn’t a situation where Broner did enough to outclass those two guys.



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