By Dan Ambrose: #3 WBA, #4 WBC, #8 IBF light welterweight contender Adrien Broner (30-1, 22 KOs) says he’ll be back in the ring in the next three months to fight against an opponent still to be determined on June 20th in his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Earlier tonight, Broner defeated John Molina (27-6, 22 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision in a fight that was booed from start to finish by a crowd of 10,106 fans at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Broner later blamed the booing by the fans on the fans simply not liking him rather than the fans not being pleased by the lack of action in the fight, and by Broner’s frequent holding and showboating.
The fans wanted to see good two-way action, but instead they saw Broner pot shotting a frightened looking Molina for 12 rounds. Broner made things worse by showboating, as if he was putting on a great performance. He wasn’t.
“I can’t relax because I’ll be right back fighting in June. June 20th in Cincinnati, Ohio,” Broner said via Fightnews.com.
Broner’s adviser Al Haymon would do well to put him in with a better opponent than what we saw tonight in his fight against Molina. Broner needs to be fighting top tier opposition at this point in his career, not 2nd tier fighters that are coming off of back to back losses like Molina was in coming into this fight.
Someone like Viktor Postol, Amir Iman or Humberto Soto would be a good opponent for Broner. Unfortunately, I don’t see Haymon matching Broner up against any of those guys. It’s likely going to be either a fringe contender like Hank Lundy or someone like Selcuk Aydin.
Broner defeated Molina by the scores of 120-108, 120-108, and 118-110. Molina averaged only 20 punches thrown per round, and there were some rounds where he landed less than 5 punches. It was just a really dreadful performance from Molina, who failed to follow the instructions from his trainer Joe Goosen by not letting his hands go.
Molina was hindered by his lack of hand speed, which made it tough for him to hit Broner with right hands thrown from the outside. But Molina needed to get closer to Broner so that he could increase the amount of shots he landed. But Molina was reluctant to let his hands go for some reason.
Molina was treating Broner like a knockout artist rather than a fighter with decent but not great punching power. It’s not as if Molina hasn’t been in with a hard puncher before. He fought Lucas Matthysse not too long ago, and Matthysse is a better puncher than Broner is.
Molina was able to knock Matthysse down twice before getting knocked out in the 11th. But perhaps the loss to Matthysse might have taken something away from Molina’s game, because he’s looked like the shell of his former self ever since then. In his first fight after his loss to Matthysse, Molina was soundly beaten by Humberto Soto last year in September in a 10 round decision loss.
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