By Dan Ambrose: Adrien Broner reacted with anger about learning that Showtime’s unofficial scorer Steve Farhood scored his fight last Saturday night 114-113 in favor of his opponent Jovanie Santiago.
In a post-fight interview with Brian Custer, Broner tore into Farhood for scoring against him. Promoter Lou DiBella feels that Custer should have said something in Farhood’s defense.
It appeared that Custer tried to, but Broner cut him off and showed an unwillingness to admit that he hadn’t fought well against Santiago.
The judges’ scores:
- 116-111
- 117-110
- 115-112
Not surprisingly, Broner (34-4-1, 24 KOs) felt that he’d deserved being given a 12 round unanimous decision by the three judges that scored his fight against bottom-ranked #15 WBA contender Santiago (14-1-1, 10 KOs) in their fight at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn.
Farhood’s scoring the fight in Santiago’s favor echoed the views of a lot of boxing fans on social media, seeing that many of them felt that he’d done enough to deserve to have his hand raised.
Santiago landed more punches, threw more shots, and appeared to connect with more power than Broner. You could see what Santiago was up against in terms of the scoring when the judges gave him Broner the first two rounds despite being out-landed.
Broner only connected on 35 punches in the first six rounds compared to 93 for Santiago. After six rounds, the fight was knotted up at 3 to 3 on the judges’ scorecards.
“I see [Steve] Farhood had me losing. That’s why I don’t f*** with him. “I f*** with you. You my homie,” said Broner to Brian Custer of Showtime in showing his unhappiness with the unofficial scorer Steve Farhood.
Custer then replied, “But let me ask you this. If you look at the Twitter poll, 52% of the people that watched the fight thought.”
Broner then interrupted Custer and said, ‘Well, if you look at my Twitter, 98% of them don’t like me. So f*** Twitter and f*** Steve Farhood.
Custer then tried a tactical approach in saying to Broner, “Let me ask you this then. Going into this and after, is there anything that you feel that ‘Maybe there’s something I need to change?’ Like everyone wants to see, ‘Is Adrien going to throw more?’ What do you think you need to change?”
“I’m going to change my draws and throw on some more draws because my boxers because they’re sweaty,” said Broner in showing resistance to being critical of his performance against Santiago.
“I love Custer, but imagine Larry Merchant listening to this bulls***,” said promoter Lou DiBella on Showtime interviewer Brian Custer failing to come to the defense of Farhood when Broner criticized him.
“Particularly the completely vile disrespect for Farhood, who had Broner pulling out a fight he clearly could have lost with fair judging. #boxing.”
Custer tried to come to Farhood’s defense, but it’s clear that Broner wasn’t going to admit that he had failed to do enough.
Instead of taking the high road and confessing that he hadn’t fought well, Broner said he needed to go home and rewatch the fight.
One could tell that Broner wasn’t happy with how things had gone. He seemed surly and throwing around expletives left and right, and taking the conversation to a lower-level when questioned by Custer about whether there was something he ‘needed to change’ in his game.
If Broner will be resistant to change, he’s going to improve enough for him to beat contenders like Regis Prograis at light welterweight.
Broner says he wants to capture a world title at 140 in 2021, but that’s not going to happen with him fighting the way he did against Santiago.
AB got lucky with the scoring against Santiago, but it’s not likely that he’ll receive the same generous scores if he faces world champions Jose Ramirez, Josh Taylor, or Mario Barrios this year.
For Broner to be given a title shot in 2021, he’s going to need to fight against a top contender to earn the fight. Unless Broner’s adviser Al Haymon can work his magic to get him a fight against another flawed contender, he’s going to likely beat one of these guys to earn a title shot:
- Regis Prograis
- Jose Zepeda
- Viktor Postol
- Rances Barthelemy