Broner vs. Allakhverdiev preview and analysis

By Boxing News - 10/02/2015 - Comments

Image: Broner vs. Allakhverdiev preview and analysis(Photo credit: Stephanie Trapp/SHOWTIME) By Tim Fletcher: Adrien Broner’s career hangs in the balance tomorrow night against Russian Khabib Allakhverdiev (19-1, 9 KOs) in their fight on Showtime in a fight for the vacant WBA World light welterweight title at the U.S Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio. Broner has a 3-2 record in his last fight fights, but his record is 0-2 against quality fighters.

His three wins were against beatable fringe and/or 2nd tier opposition. Losing to the 32-year-old Khabib Allakhverdiev, who could be considered a bottom 10 contender at 140, would give a clear sign that Broner isn’t going to be able to cut it at this weight.

To be sure, Broner can move back down to lightweight, but that division doesn’t command a lot of attention from the boxing fans aside from the hardcore fans. It’ll be next to impossible for Broner to become a big star if he’s fighting 135lb fighters that the casual boxing fans have never heard of.

That’s why it’s extremely important for Broner to defeat Allakhverdiev Allakhverdiev tomorrow night and look good in doing so. Broner can’t afford to clinch and/or run around the ring all night long like he did in his fight against Shawn Porter last June in his losing effort in that fight.

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Broner must stand in the pocket like his mentor Floyd Mayweather Jr. usually does, and above all throw a lot of punches. Broner cannot afford to average 25 punches thrown per round again like he did in his last fight against Porter in losing a 12 round unanimous decision to him.

Allakhverdiev has been out of the ring for a year and a half since a loss to Jessie Vargas last year in April 2014. We don’t know what Allakhverdiev is going to look like after being out of action for that long of a time. That’s a long time for a fighter to be inactive and then being given a world title shot by the World Boxing Association.

You can call the WBA’s decision to select Allakhverdiev as Broner’s opponent a political move by the WBA, because they could have selected higher ranked fighters like Jose Benavidez and Amir Iman for Broner. Better yet, the WBA could have selected Benavidez and Iman to fight each other, and then have Broner and Allakhverdiev to fight in a WBA 140lb eliminator. That would have made much more sense than for the WBA to select two fighters coming off of a defeat for them to fight for their WBA light welterweight title.

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Allakhverdiev has a southpaw stance working for him in this fight, but he doesn’t have much punching power or hand speed. Broner defeated a similar fighter to Allakhverdiev back in 2012, when he defeated southpaw Antonio DeMarco by an 8th round knockout. Like DeMarco, Allakhverdiev fights in a straight up manner and doesn’t have hand speed.

Allakhverdiev likes to wait around for his opponents to throw punches before he looks to counter them. Broner is probably going to throw a lot of punches in this fight, because he’s obviously heard the criticism about his last fight against Porter and he won’t want to repeat those mistakes. But Broner will also throw a lot of shots because he’s not facing a puncher in this fight or someone with a lot of hand speed. Allakhverdiev is slow and throws shots with only moderate punching power on them.

Allakhverdiev’s failing to put the kind of pressure on Jessie Vargas in his last fight to get the victory. Vargas was clearly the faster and stronger puncher, which doesn’t really say much because Vargas is neither fast nor powerful. It just that Allakhverdiev is so utterly lacking in both of those areas that it allowed Vargas to get the better of him by default. Allakhverdiev is likely going to wait around and let Broner take the lead in this fight all night long, and focus instead on landing occasionally counter shots.

This is going to allow Broner to win most of the rounds because he’s going to be the one doing all the work for the most part. Allakhverdiev’s strategy to win the fight will be a failed one, because he doesn’t have the punching power to win rounds by landing an occasional hard shots, and he won’t be thgrowing enough punches to win rounds either.

It’s just not going to work at all for Allakhverdiev if he doesn’t take command of the fight and focus on throwing 100+ punchers per round. That’s the only way a light puncher like Allakhverdiev can win this fight.

If all he does it try and match the output that Broner puts out in this fight, he’s going to lose because Broner will have the harder punches. I don’t think for a second that Allakhverdiev will be able to match Broner’s output because he doesn’t throw that many punches.



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