By Jim Dower: Former four division world champion Adrien Broner (32-2, 24 KOs) says he’s totally prepared for anything his opponent Adrian Granados brings to the ring on Saturday night on February 18 at the Cintas Center at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. Broner-Granados will be televised on Showtime Championship Boxing.
Broner still wants to become a big star in the boxing world, but he can’t let himself take anymore defeats like the ones he experienced against Marcos Maidana and Shawn Porter. Broner needs to get serious with his career, and he’s got to change the way he fights.
(Photo credit: Stephanie Trapp/SHOWTIME)
Broner doesn’t throw enough punches sometimes, and he can be outworked. We saw that in his fights against Maidana and Porter. Broner even had problems in his fight against Emmanuel Taylor in 2014. Broner won the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision, but it was a closer contest than it should have been. Taylor is a fighter that the best fighters at 140 would have easily beaten.
The fact that Broner struggled with him for 12 rounds says a lot about his limitations as a fighter. If Broner can show improvement against Granados, then that would be great for him and his management because he’s got great potential to be an excellent fighter. He just needs to pick up his game and take advantage of his boxing ability.
“With a guy like Granados, I can’t slack,” said Broner. “He’s only going to bring out the best out of me. I’m ready for anything he has. He’s a tough guy. I know that Granados is not coming in here to back down.”
What is already perceived as a negative with Broner for this fight is the fact that he asked to have the weight for the fight increased from 142 to 147. That’s not a lot of weight, but the fact that Broner needed the weight to be moved up tells you that he didn’t put in the work to get his weight down for him to make the 142lb limit.
Broner missed making weight in his previous fight against Ashley Theophane last April. Broner is now 2 for 2 in missing weight in consecutive fights. We still don’t know if Broner will even make the 147lb limit for this fight. If he can’t make the weight, then that would be a bad look for him.
Granados beat Amir Imam in 2015 in stopping him in the 8th round. Imam is someone that might be good enough to beat Broner. We don’t know. It wouldn’t be surprising if Imam did beat Broner. Granados’ win over Imam showed the boxing world how good he is, and how much improvement he’s made since his back to back defeats to Brad Solomon and Felix Diaz.
“Adrien is a strong puncher, but I try not to focus too much on my opponent,” said Granados. “I’m focused on myself and what I can do to beat the main in front of me. I got this great opportunity, and I’m looking to take advantage of it.”
This would be a huge win for Granados if he were to beat Broner. I don’t think too many boxing fans are giving Granados much of a chance of beating Broner. Of course, the people that saw Granados beat Imam in 2015 are likely seeing him as having a good chance of winning. However, Granados fought only once in 2016 in struggling to beat journeyman Ariel Vasquez (12-15-2) by an eight round unanimous decision. Granados did not look good at all in that fight. It’s not good that Granados’ last fight was his effort against Vasquez, and it’s also not good that he fought only once in 2016. Granados might have some rust on him when he gets inside the ring with Broner on Saturday and this is the wrong fighter to be rusty against.
Former IBF light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (34-3-1, 17 KOs) will be looking to put some life into his career in his fight against WBA welterweight champion David Avanesyan (22-1, 11 KOs). It’ll be a great news story if the 33-year-old Peterson can win this fight, because he’s been beaten a couple of times in his last six fights.
You don’t usually see fighters coming back from two defeats in their last six fights to win a world title. If Peterson can do it, he would surprise a lot of boxing fans and writers. Peterson lost to Danny Garcia by a 12 round unanimous decision in 2015. Peterson was also knocked out in the 3rd round by a prime version of Lucas Matthysse in 2013. Peterson’s wins in the last three years have come against Felix Diaz, Edgar Santana and Dierry Jean. What’s hurt Peterson more than just the losses in the last three years of his career is his inactivity. He just has not fought a lot for some reason. For example, Peterson didn’t fight at all in 2016. He did fight twice in 2013, 2014 and 2015, but he was missing in action last year.
In another fight on the card, light heavyweight Marcus Browne will be taking on the hard hitting Thomas Williams Jr. That should be an interesting fight while it lasts. Browne is a good fighter, but flawed at the same time. The same can be said about Williams Jr., who was recently knocked out by WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson.