By Rameez Haider: Adrien Broner was the one mooted to take over the reigns as boxing’s next superstar. People compared him to Floyd Mayweather; many even saw him as the one to beat Mayweather, yet after 36 minutes of boxing all these ideas were taken away by Marcos Maidana. Many people have been over the moon about fact Broner lost, some people shocked and some not surprised after his previous performance against Paulie Malignaggi. The question I ask is whether Broner lost this fight in the ring or outside the ring.
In thinking about this, Ricky Hatton was the 1st name that sprung to mind. Hatton was a very good fighter and had some excellent fights, however Hatton had the problem where he was flat-footed, did not have great lateral movement and was easy to catch. The main reason behind this was his lifestyle outside the ring. Hatton always ballooned up in weight and lived a poor lifestyle. The result of this was the fact Hatton could never be fleet footed after spending more time carrying excess weight. He didn’t have great speed or movement again for the same reason. In a 12 week training camp Hatton would be in shape for the last 3 weeks which is nowhere near enough time to be able to get the speed and the movement needed to be a true elite fighter on the level of Mayweather, Pacquiao, Cotto, Marquez etc.
For me, Broner has the exact same problem, in the last 2 years every time I have seen Broner he has looked extremely over weight, at one point you could barely see his neck as a result. This left me wondering how he could possibly beat Maidana. Maidana is a pressure fighter, and the way to beat him was to stick and move, something Amir Khan did very well for 9 to 10 rounds and in doing so made the fight look easy until he was caught in the later part of the fight. This is not to take anything away from Maidana as his improvement over the past 2 years has been very good, but if Mayweather was to fight Maidana, I see the fight going in a very similar way to the Mayweather vs. Marquez fight, where Marquez chased shadows for 12 rounds.
In all access Broner looked like he was training hard, but most of that energy was wasted on actually getting into shape to fight and maybe the last 4 weeks would have been spent trying to harness the skills to beat Maidana but let’s look at the number one fighter in the world, Floyd Mayweather. Love him or hate him, you can’t deny his ring craft. Never have I seen Mayweather out of shape. He is constantly on the ring creating a physique built for fighting, built for his style which is one Broner tries to resemble. Where the likes of Hatton and Broner spend 4 weeks in a training camp in shape working on trying to get the foot movement etc right, Mayweather spends nearly all year doing so, and like in any sport the more you practice the better you will inevitably become. All the great fighters in history are those who dedicated their whole life to the sport, who put boxing before everything else and this is what Broner needs to learn.
People have had so many views on Broner, and I am one who believes he could still be one of the best fighters on the planet moving forward, but Broner needs to solve the Problem, which is Broner himself.
If Broner really wants to be everything he believes he can be, he needs to spend his life dedicated to his skills inside the ring rather than wasting his life outside the ring. If Broner wants to be the next Mayweather, he needs to learn from Mayweather and replicate the hard work and dedication that Mayweather preaches and puts into practice.
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