By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBA light welterweight and EBU lightweight champion Gavin Rees (37-1-1, 18 KO’s) thinks he can target the body of WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner (25-0, 21 KO’s) when they face off on February 16th at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Rees isn’t saying it directly but it looks like he’s going to try and get in close and work Broner’s body over. His fellow Brits are giving him advice about trying to smother Broner’s offense by getting on top of him and throwing a lot of shots. It remains to be seen whether either of these strategies will work for Rees.
Rees said to walesonline.co.uk “He’s [Broner] a world class operator but he leans back a lot and he leaves his body open a hell of a lot. There are weaknesses there that we will work on exploiting in the gym.”
I’ve seen more than a few of Broner’s opponents attempt to work his body and that’s proven to be a poor strategy against him because his opponent leave heads open when throwing body shots. Broner than tags them hard and he usually hurts them. Gavin may choose to work Broner’s body but he’ll probably get knocked out in one or two rounds if he sticks with that failed strategy.
Former WBC super middleweight champion Richie Woodall thinks Rees can beat Broner by getting in close and throwing a lot of punches. In other words, trying to overwhelm Broner’s shoulder roll defense and beat him at his own game in close. I don’t think that’s a good idea. Rees is a Euro level fighters, that’s who he’s been facing ever since he had a bad experience when he tried to step it up against world class competition in his 12th round knockout loss to Andriy Kotelnik in 2008. Rees isn’t going to suddenly start showing talent after five years of facing domestic and Euro level opposition exclusively when he faces a guy that’s even better than the fighter that beat him in Kotelnik.
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