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There are a few certainties in life. The usuals, death and taxes, and the fact that Adrien Broner is going to come into the ring dancing merrily along with whatever music he’s decided to have accompany him. He might be particularly frisky on Saturday night, because he’ll be leading off the inaugural episode of PBC on NBC.
What is somewhat uncertain is whether or not Broner will be dancing on his way out of the ring after his fight with John Molina, or if he’ll be gingerly helped out between the ropes like an old man easing his way out of a bathtub.
Molina, who was the losing half of the 2014 fight of the year, isn’t the slickest boxer in the world. He won’t dazzle anybody with hand speed or footwork. He’ll simply try to break your spine with each punch he throws. And he throws grenades.
Broner’s only loss came against Marcos “Floyd Is a Bitch” Maidana, who used Broner’s arrogance against him. Broner’s game plan for that fight (and for pretty much every fight) apparently involved little more than trash talking, using the ill-advised shoulder roll technique, and occasionally pretending to thrust into his opponent’s backside. Fun stuff.
While he usually gets away with it, Maidana was having none of it. He simply got close to Broner and winged bombs that connected flush, sending him to the canvas over and over. I’ve written ad nauseum about Broner’s frustrating insistence on fighting counter-intuitively, but we’ll go over it one more time.
He idolizes Floyd Mayweather. That’s fine–Floyd is a brilliant fighter, probably one of the best of all time. But Broner’s problem comes from trying to imitate “Money” in the ring, usually to his detriment.
Broner is an offensively gifted fighter–he’s got nasty hand speed, excellent accuracy with his shots and he can flurry with anyone. Why then, does he maddeningly refuse to throw punches for LONG stretches of time, all while attempting that awkward shoulder roll that Floyd has perfected?
He loses rounds against guys by going on autopilot instead of stepping on the gas. One example is his fight with Paulie “YOU ARE ALL ON ROIDS” Malignaggi. The fight had no business being close, yet there were many who scored the fight for Paulie. Broner was content to just hand over rounds.
And hey, he’s gotten away with it for the most part. But Molina, while not quite as skilled as Maidana, packs a serious punch. It isn’t far-fetched to imagine him detonating Broner with one left hook to his exposed chin. In fact, there are a whole lot of people out there who will be watching the fight hoping that exact thing happens.
But maybe this is finally the time for Broner to put it all together. He’s still a trash talker, but that humiliating loss to Maidana had to have stung. It probably still stings to think about getting decked repeatedly. He has to know that Molina is very, very dangerous. He proved that against Lucas Matthysse, when he went toe-to-toe with a guy you don’t do that with, only to get the better of the exchanges for a brief few rounds.
Matthysse had been dropped just once, in his fight with Danny Garcia. But with Molina, it was different. He was hurt. Molina eventually faded, taking vicious punishment, but Broner doesn’t hit like Matthysse. And he certainly can’t hit very hard when he’s not throwing punches.
Broner needs to use his offense as his defense. Enough with the cruising, doing nothing but posing while his opponent goes to work. That will only get him hit by a man nobody wants to get hit by. He needs to let the hands go early and often. He’s got to take the nastiness out of Molina’s shots. From there, he can go to the body, mixing up his shots to offset Molina’s rhythm. Again, Molina is nowhere near as talented a boxer as Broner.
The point is, he doesn’t need to be. Broner just isn’t very good defensively, yet he thinks he’s elite. A new corner man would probably point that out rather quickly. But he won’t have that Saturday. What he’ll hopefully have is some new perspective, one that a fighter sometimes gains from getting his ass beat. The good ones learn from it, adapt and move on.
The ones that can’t? They go on repeating past mistakes, pile up losses, and fade into obscurity while acting like it’s all part of the plan. I don’t know which one of these Adrien Broner is. If I had to guess, it would be the latter. The way he blew up in between fights suggests that he’s been less “About Billions” and more “About Biscuits.”
Hopefully we’ll find out, along with a host of curious newbies checking out some boxing Saturday night. I’m not sure Molina has enough gas in the tank to truly test him, but I’m not blowing him off as a shot fighter by any stretch.
Broner would be wise to do the same.
