Can Broner still compete against Garcia?

By Boxing News - 07/27/2017 - Comments

Image: Can Broner still compete against Garcia?

By Gerardo Granados: This Saturday on July 29 at the Barclays Center, Brooklyn, New York, two of the boxing current big names will fight each other in Adrien “The Problem” Broner (33-2, 24 KOs) facing Mikey Garcia (36-0, 30 KOs). One is a hungry lion on the rise to stardom and he might as well be having a fighter of the year nomination if keeps on winning this year. The other one is a boxer that not a long ago used to be highly touted and some even dared to compare him to Floyd Mayweather Jr.

For those who care about statistics, well between Adrien and Mikey we find 8 titles, also 14 title bouts, and those titles were achieved at four (Broner) and three (Mikey) different weight divisions from the featherweight up to the welter divisions. Some of those titles carry more weight than others but I’ll just say that both Broner and Garcia have never bored me.

Last February, Broner won a dubious decision against Adrian Granados, but this isn’t his only dubious win if you can recall his fight against Paulie Malignaggi. On the other corner, Mikey Garcia scored a knock out of the year nominee against Dejan Zlaticanin on his last fight.

From what I have seen, Mikey has always been very professional and focused on his craft but Adrien has always been a problem for himself. But please don’t get me wrong because I do like Broner a lot; he is like an old school fighter not a modern boxer athlete. But I most try to be objective even if I am not going to bet on Garcia to win by a clear unanimous decision this Saturday night.

I believe that the best version of Broner was at the super featherweight and lightweight divisions and even that Adrien still is a young boxer I think that we already seen his best years behind him. On contrary, Mikey keeps on getting better fight after fight. The long layoff that he had didn’t affected him at all. None the less it would be great to see Broner show his pride and try to prove us doubters all wrong by putting a helluva fight next Saturday.

The first opponent for Broner to beat will be the scales and due his past history of failing to make weight there is a big fine for not making contracted weight. There is only one way to find out how can making 140 can affect Broner, I hope this helps him to improve his speed and mobility.

Mikey is moving up in weight and it will be interesting to see how he can perform at 140, also if his hand speed and power will follow him. The result of this fight could create interest from fight fans to see him against the winner of Terence Crawford and Julius Indongo, so even if this isn’t a title bout (diamond belts are as good as paper) this might be Garcia´s biggest fight so far in his boxing career.

The biggest problem a see on Broner isn’t only his known indiscipline and numerous problems outside the ring; no it might be in my opinion that his cross guard isn’t as effective against bigger foes. Also Adrien sort of has become one dimensional on his fighting game and his opponents have already study him and know his tendencies during the fight.

Broner has become reckless on his technical habits during the fight, showing no head movement often coming forward on strait lines relying on countering on slower foes but when he faces boxer with good hand speed he is puzzled. No need to say that his low punch output and on times his slow fighting pace can only benefit his opponents.

A friend of mine asked me if Broner can still compete against Mikey, so I told him that for sure he can compete against him, but to win was a different story. But what about the reader, do you think that Broner still can compete against a disciplined boxer as Garcia is?

Broner vs. Garcia will be televised on Showtime Boxing this Saturday night starting at 9:00 p.m. ET.