(Photo credit: Naoki Fakuda) By Dan Ambrose: WBC lightweight champion Antonio DeMarco (28-2-1, 21 KO’s) is respectful of the threat that unbeaten Adrien Broner (24-0, 20 KO’s) brings to his fight with him for Saturday night, but DeMarco doesn’t see it as tougher fight than his bout against former knockout artist Edwin Valero back in 2010.
It was the last fight of Valero’s career and he came into the fight with a perfect 26-0, 26 KO record. Not surprisingly, Valero stopped DeMarco in a one-sided fight in the 9th round, even though Valero looked haggard, like he hadn’t slept in days. He was simply too strong for DeMarco.
DeMarco said “I think I had an even bigger contest with Edwin Valero. That will help me with my confidence.”
Let’s hope that DeMarco is putting more into this fight than just confidence because that’s not going to be enough. He’s got to have the talent to beat Broner, because he can come into the fight all the confidence in the world and it won’t mean a thing if he can’t actually beat Broner in the talent department. There are a lot of fighters with supreme confidence but when they fight a superior fighter, the confidence is a poor substitute for talent.
If DeMarco has the talent to beat Broner tomorrow night then he’ll do the job, but if he doesn’t he’ll end up like the same punching bag that Valero beat up on back in 2010. That fight wasn’t close and that wasn’t Valero at his best.
DeMarco has beaten some good fighters in his career most notably his win over Jorge Linares last year. However, Linares isn’t a puncher like Broner, so it was only a matter of time before DeMarco wore him down with his big shots. Broner can punch and he’s a faster and has better boxing skills than DeMarco. That doesn’t mean DeMarco can’t win, but it does mean that it’s going to be a lot tougher than it was for him against the lighter hitting Linares.
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