By Dan Ambrose: If Adrien Broner (30-2, 22 KOs) and his fans want a good reason for why he lost to former IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (26-1-1, 16 KOs) last Saturday night then you might want to look at the final punch stats. Broner averaged only 25.75 punches thrown per round for the 12 round bout at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
In comparison, Porter threw almost twice as many punches in averaging 49 punches thrown per round.
Broner connected on 88 of 309 punches for a connect percentage of 28, according to Premier Boxing Champions’ stats. In contrast, Porter connected on 149 of 590 punches for a connect percentage of 25 percent. The loss for Broner comes down to him not being busy enough, which was his same problem in his 12 round decision loss to Marcos Maidana in 2013.
Broner showed no improvement from that fight. Broner’s low work rate is something that should have been corrected with the help of his trainer Mike Stafford. The fact that Broner is still averaging in the 20s in terms of put output per round suggests that he’s not fixing a major problem with his game. That’s a training issue.
Broner is going to need to think about getting a new trainer. If Stafford is telling Broner to throw more punches, then it’s on Broner for failing to listen to him. However, if Stafford isn’t pushing Broner in training camp and in his fights to let his hands go more, then Broner needs to dump him for a new trainer as fast as possible before his career goes down the drain.
There’s no excuse for a fighter at the top level to only throw 25 punches per round at welterweight. If Broner were a knockout artist like Gennady Golovkin, he could get away with only throwing a small handful of punches per round, but that’s not the kind of fighter that Broner is. Now that Broner has moved up in weight to 140 and 147, he’s no longer knocking guys out like he previously did at super featherweight and lightweight.
Broner is forced to fight the full 12 rounds now every time out, and that’s a clear sign that he didn’t carry his punching power up with him when he moved out of the lightweight division. If Broner can’t fix his low work rate, then he needs to move back down to the lightweight division before it’s too late. Broner is going to lose a lot of fans if he keeps getting beaten.
I get the feeling that Broner is throwing so few punches per round because he doesn’t have the stamina to fight hard and throw 50 to 75 punches round like a lot of light welterweights and welterweights do.
Broner needs to change his fighting style by going from being a counter puncher in the Floyd Mayweather Jr. type mold to becoming an attacking fighter like what we saw in the 12th round against Porter. Broner looked a lot better when he was attacking Porter and coming forward in the 12th then he did in the previous 11 rounds. If Broner could fight like that all the time, he’d be an awesome fighter.
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