By Allan Fox: By Jeff Aranow: Shawn Porter sees former 4 division world champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (33-2, 24 Kos) being at the “end of the line” tonight in his fight against lightweight world champion Mikey Garcia (36-0, 30 KOs) on Showtime Championship Boxing at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Porter isn’t picking a winner in the fight, but he does believe that Broner has the determination to get the win. However, if Broner comes up empty, Porter sees him as being at the end. It would be the 28-year-old Broner’s third defeat in the last 4 years of his career.
What could finish Broner as a big time fighter is him suffering a knockout loss to Mikey Garcia. There’s so much publicity surrounding tonight’s Broner-Garcia fight. The entire boxing world will be watching it from all around the globe. A knockout defeat for Broner will be seen and heard by millions of fans. Trying to climb back from a KO loss to Garcia may prove to be impossible for Broner, especially with his life outside of the ring seemingly being out of control. Broner hasn’t living the life of a boxer in recent years. He’s been enjoying himself a little bit too much instead of keeping his nose on the grindstone.
“Yes, I do,” said Porter when asked by Fighthub if this is a ‘do or die’ fight for Broner. “I’ve said that from the beginning, especially fighting a guy like Mikey Garcia, who is young and a world champion, obviously in a different weight class. This is pretty much the end of the line for him,”said Porter about Broner.
Just where Broner can go from here if he loses it’s the question that a lot of boxing fans have been asking. There are no vacancies at light welterweight for Broner to win another easy title like the one that he captured in 2015 in beating Khabib Allakhverdiev by a 12th round knockout to win the vacant WBA World super lightweight title. If Broner can’t beat Mikey Garcia, then it probably rules out any chances of him beating the winner of the Terence Crawford vs. Julius Indongo fight in August. Broner has already failed twice at welterweight, so that’s not a good move for him. Broner’s trainer Michael Stafford said that he believes he can still make 135 to fight in the super featherweight division. That might be Broner’s next destination and best chance to recapture the form that he once had. Broner would need to compete with fighters like Vasyl Lomachenko, Gervonta Davis, Miguel Berchelt and Jezreel Corrales. Broner would have a good chance of beating Corrales and Davis, but not such a good chance against Lomachenko and Berchelt.
Mikey Garcia is the favorite to win tonight. The betting money is on the 29-yer-old Garcia to win. It’s up to Broner to prove everyone wrong. He says he’s going to do just that, but right now it’s not looking good for the Cincinnati, Ohio native.
Broner has lost to Marcos and Porter thus far in his career. Some boxing fans think Broner deserve a defeat against Adrian Granados in his last fight on February 18. Broner won the fight by a 10 round split decision, but he was outworked by Granados throughout the fight.
“I see a decision,” said Porter in predicting the Broner-Garcia fight. “At the end of the day, Adrien Broner has been a world champion multiple times. He’s a fighter and a survivor. He’ll do whatever it takes to win the fight and finish it. Everyone thought he was at his beat a 135. To be a little bit strong to come in at 138, 140, it’s a big advantage for him.”
It’s generally agreed that what gives Broner the best chance of winning is for him to walk Garcia down, hit him frequently to the body, and not let him rest. Garcia got flustered and exhausted from the pressure that was put on him in his fight against Orlando Salido in 2013. Garcia’s trainer Robert Garcia pulled him out of the fight after round 8 when he suffered a broken nose. The injury didn’t look bad enough for the fight to be stopped. It looked to some like Robert was concerned with how the fight was turning around with Salido getting the better of a very tired Garcia. Some think Garcia quit in between rounds. However, Garcia was fortunate that fight went to the scorecards and he was able to win an 8th round technical decision. Broner thinks Mikey flat out quit.
”I know he quit,” said Broner to RingTV.com about a tired looking Garcia choosing not to continue fighting Salido after the 8th round in 2013. ”Salido should’ve have won that fight. I can make anybody quit when I’m 110 percent. He [Mikey Garcia] ain’t no [expletive Marcos] Maidana, and they know that. He feels like he’s going to win, too, but this mother [expletive] ain’t going to beat me,” said Broner.
There’s a good chance that Mikey would have lost to Salido, but that has no bearing on tonight’s fight. Broner isn’t Salido, and he doesn’t fight anything like him. Salido is a vicious body puncher, and he was going after Garcia’s body with power shots from the early rounds of the fight. Garcia was doing a good job of shoving Salido to keep him from getting close enough to land his shots in the first 6 rounds, but by the 7th, it was no longer working. Salido was getting to Garcia, hitting him hard to the body and wearing him down quickly. It was pretty startling to see how fast Garcia become exhausted once Salido was able to land his body shots. With 4 rounds to go after the 8th, things looked bleak for Garcia. But surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, his trainer Robert Garcia pulled him out of the fight, telling the referee that he had suffered a broken nose. Salido laughed at the excuse from Team Mikey, pointing out that he too had a broken nose and he wasn’t quitting like them.
What the Salido fight seemed to tell us about Mikey Garcia is he has a lack of toughness that can be brought out if he’s pressured, roughed up and hurt. If Garcia gets pressured and roughed up, he’ll quit. That gives the indication that Garcia is more of type of fighter that is front runner, who does well when he’s in control, but who falls apart mentally when he has to deal with adversity. You can blame Garcia’s lack of toughness on his promoters, as they’re the ones that have carefully guided his career by making certain fights for him. If Garcia had fought Salido 3 or 4 times, we’d know a little bit more about him than we do now. If Garcia had fought Lomachenko and Terence Crawford, we’d have a better idea of how well he’ll do tonight against Broner. We have so little to work with for Garcia, due to him having been put in with guys that he was always favored to beat. Tonight is going to tell us a lot about Garcia, and the boxing public may not like what they find.
“He ain’t,” said Broner to Fighhype when asked if Mikey Garcia will stand in front of him to slug. “He’d be a fool if he do. I ain’t worried about all that,” said Broner when asked if he’ll be the bigger guy. “He ain’t got better skills than me,” said Broner.
I think it’s academic that Mikey Garcia IS NOT Marcos Maidana. He’ll never be as rugged and powerful as a guy like Maidana. Garcia is more like a Ferrari and Maidana an off road Humvee type of fighter. Maidana would like walk through Garcia’s big shots and wear him down the way that Salido was doing, but much faster. It wouldn’t take 8 rounds for Maidana to make Garcia quit like it did with Salido. Maidana would have Garcia complaining of injuries, real or imagined, much earlier in the fight in my opinion. Robert Garcia would have to let the referee know that his fighter is injured, again, and the fight would be stopped to save Garcia. Garcia does hit hard, but he’s obviously not built to fight a rugged fighter that brings it to him and forced him into the trenches. Garcia doesn’t like to get his feet wet, and unfortunately to beat a guy like Maidana, you needed to get your feet wet.
“It’s fight time. It’s time to fight. It’s time to see what all the hype is about,” said Broner in response to a question of what he told Mikey during their face off last Friday. “We’re going to see what he’s got A nice victory, a convincing victory,” said Broner in what his prediction is for the Garcia fight. “They keep banking because Maidana got a victory. Maidana wouldn’t have beaten me if I would have followed my brain instead of my heart. It was a learning experience. He’s tripping, man. He’s drunk, man. He’s trying to fight like us. He’s TRYING to fight like us. Yeah, that’s why he’s trying to fight like us,” said Broner when told that Mikey greatly admires Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Garcia’s trainer Robert Garcia seems to think that Mikey hits harder than Maidana, because a sparring partner told him that. Robert now seems to have things twisted in his head, believing that because someone told him that Mikey hits harder than Maidana, it must mean he would beat him too. That’s not how it works in boxing. Before Maidana retired, he was capable of hitting with major power with every shot, and he could walk through big shots without needing to run or hold. Garcia hasn’t shown the same ability. He can’t stay in the pocket, because he doesn’t take shots as well as Maidana, and he’s not as busy as the Argentinian fighter was. Robert needs to be happy for the kind of fighter Mikey is, and not thinking that he’s better than a large former welterweight like Maidana. Mikey will never be able to do what Maidana did at welterweight. If Mikey moved up to welterweight right now, he’d be out of his league against guys like Errol Spence Jr., Keith Thurman, Manny Pacquiao, Jeff Horn, Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia. Those guys are bigger and stronger than Mikey Garcia.
“They do,” said Broner in remarking that the media seems to want Mikey Garcia to win the fight rather than him. “If I was Mexican, I’d be bigger now. It’s tougher for us to reach that level, because out people don’t back our people the way their people back their people. I guess I’ll be 5-time world champion after I win this belt,” said Broner about the WBC Diamond light welterweight title that will be on the line for tonight’s fight.
Broner believes that some people in the boxing world want Mikey to beat him. He thinks that he’d be a much bigger star than he is now if he were Mexican. I don’t know if that’s true or not. If Broner was struggling like he is now, I don’t think it would matter where he’s from. He’d have problems getting the boxing fans on board to back him. Broner needs to get serious about his career and succeed. His career has clearly gone downhill since his loss to Maidana in 2013. There’s no mistaking that. Broner is on the verge of skid row, which is why he needs to win tonight against Garcia.
“I’m still the favorite,” said Broner to secondsout.com. “They’re bringing what’s going on outside the ring inside the ring. When I win, hopefully I’ll get more credit. Some people will have a change of heart. I’ll be victorious,” said Broner.
I disagree with Broner on his assertion that he’s not the favorite due to his outside of the ring problems. The odds-makers are likely basing their predictions on tonight’s fight based on how Broner has looked recently in his fights against Adrian Granados, Ashley Theophane and Khabib Allakhverdiev. Broner didn’t look particularly impressive in any of those fights. In contrast, Mikey Garcia has looked sensational in his last 2 fights in beating Dejan Zlaticanin and Elio Rojas. To be sure, those fighters aren’t great talents, and Garcia had a huge advantage over them, but he still looked very good. The odds-makers are clearly basing their predictions on tonight’s’ Broner-Garcia fight in how the two fighters have been looking lately.
“Yeah, it’s going to be a unanimous decision,” said Kenny Porter to Fighthub about tonight’s Garcia-Broner fight. “He looks great. He’s fine. He looked very lively and had a lot of energy, and looked focused,” said Kenny in talking about Broner bouncing around at the weigh-in last Friday.
Broner did not look good to me. I think he looked too thin. A lot of people thought Broner was sickly looking due to how dried up and emaciated he was. His head looks too big for his body right now. I hope for Broner’s sake that this changed by tonight, because he’s not going to beat Garcia with him looking as thin as he is now.
“I knew he was going to be in shape,” said Mikey Garcia to Fighthype in talking about how Broner looked at the weigh-in. “I knew he was going to take it serious. There was a big penalty. It might have been a mistake to come down that low,” said Garcia in saying that Broner shouldn’t have come in at 138 lbs. at the weigh-in.
I think Garcia is being honest with his opinion about Broner having come in too low with his weight during Friday’s weigh-in. Mikey is telling it like he sees it. Broner looks thinner for this fight than he has in a long, long time. Even when Broner was fighting at super featherweight, he didn’t look this thin. The reason for that is because he was keeping his weight down back then. When he dried out, he wasn’t already drained looking like he before he started dehydrating for tonight’s fight. I think Broner has taken off too much weight for this fight. He started too high, and he’s paid the price in dropping too much weight in s a short period of time, which is never good to do.
“It was a mistake,” said trainer Robert Garcia, who also believes Broner came in too low at 138. “It’s at 140. Why would you come in at 138? It’s a big mistake for them.”
Robert Garcia is right about Broner. He’s taken too much weight off. Robert obviously is hoping that Mikey can take advantage of the weight drained looking Broner. We’ll have to see. Broner has a blue print to work on for the Garcia fight tonight with him knowing about the Garcia-Salido fight. This means that Broner will be looking to put a tremendous amount of pressure on Mikey tonight to try and wear him down the way Salido was.
“This fight could start him back,” said IBF lightweight champion Robert Easter Jr. to Fighthype about Broner. “Definitely, he’s already a star, but this is one of those fights that will take him there.”
