(Photo credit: Tom Casino/Showtime) By Allan Fox: WBA welterweight champion Adrien Broner (27-0, 22 KO’s) says he’ll knock challenger Marcos Maidana (34-3, 31 KO’s) out immediately in the 1st or 2nd rounds if he comes out aggressively tonight in their fight at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
Broner feels that for Maidana to be able to hang around in this fight then he’s going to have to fight very carefully so that he doesn’t walk into anything big from him. In other words, Maidana will need to fight like Paulie Malignaggi did by staying mostly on the outside throwing jabs and trying to avoid Broner’s single pot shots.
Broner said at yesterday’s weigh-in “If he comes in there with some dumb s***, I’m flat-lining him. Easy money.”
Broner said “I’m going to teach him to respect me. I want to fight him so much. I want to see him on the ground. If I don’t knock him out, its not going to be a win for me.”
It’s unknown if Maidana feels that he absolutely needs a knockout to win. If that comment he made about him needing a knockout to get the victory is meant in the sense that he might be given a decision, then he might in fact me right about that.
It’s going to be very difficult for Maidana to get the nod in this fight if it goes to the cards, as Broner is the much more popular fighter of the two, he’s the guy that Golden Boy Promotions is grooming to be the next Floyd Mayweather Jr., and he’s the WBA champion at 147.
For Maidana to get past all of that, he’s probably going to need to put Broner on the canvas and keep him there. A knockdown or two might not be enough for Maidana to get the win unless he stops Broner. We saw Malignaggi out-land Broner almost 2-1 last June in their fight, and yet Malignaggi still lost the fight.
That just shows you what Maidana is up against in this fight. He’s being brought in as the opponent to make Broner look good. If he forgets that and thinks he’s going to win by a decision then he’s probably going to end up very disappointed when his hand isn’t raised at the end of the fight.
Broner has been talking a lot about him knocking Maidana out by over-powering him, but Borner doesn’t have that kind of power at this weight. He’s more of an arm puncher now at 147, and he’s going to need to win most of his fights by decision in this weight class because he lacks the raw power that you need to be a big knockout power in the welterweight class.
If there’s going to be a knockout in this fight then it’s going to be Maidana does it. He’s the bigger puncher by far, and he doesn’t need to load up with everything he has to punch like that the way that Broner does at this weight. If Maidana is able to put hands on Broner for any length of time in this fight, then he’s going to knock him out. Broner won’t be able to take Maidana’s shots for 12 rounds without getting knocked out. That’s why you can expect Broner to use a lot of movement in this fight, because he already knows from watching tape that he can’t stand in front of Maidana.
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