Mikey Garcia vs. Adrien Broner – Results

Boxingnews24.com

By Allan Fox: Mikey Garcia (37-0, 30 Kos) won a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision victory over a weight drained looking former four division world champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (33-3, 24 KOs) on Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

(Photo credit Tom Casino/SHOWTIME)

Garcia, 29, appeared to win every round. The judges scored the fight 116-112, 117-111 and 116-112. Boxing News 24 scored it 120-108 for Mikey. The only round in which Broner fought well enough to possibly win was round 10. Even in that round, Garcia landed the heavier shots and got the better of Broner.

The fight quickly got out of hand with Garcia winning round after round, and building a large lead after the first 6 rounds. Broner’s longtime trainer Michael Stafford began to plead with him in between rounds starting in round 7 to try and get his fighter to throw punches and go on the attack. Broner was unwilling or unable to comply with Stafford’s directions.

Broner came out in round 8, throwing jabs and little else. The power punches that Broner did throw, they often missed, because he wasn’t following through with power. Broner was throwing them tentatively, as if he was afraid of being countered by Garcia. It was a mistake for Broner not to load up on his shots, considering that he wasn’t able to make the fight competitive.

The crowd began to get restless and boo by the 9th round due to the lack of action. The boxing fans thought they were going to see a fight. Garcia is not generally a busy fighter. He tends to wait around and look for opportunities. It’s pure Mayweather stuff from Mikey, and it’s not the kind of thing that the boxing fans are accustomed to seeing with exciting fighters like middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin.

Mikey did just enough in each round to win. He would plod after Broner, throw a few shots, and then wait for him to throw something back. It wasn’t thrilling to watch.

In round 10, Mikey dropped his hands and dared Broner to try and hit him. Broner was too afraid to take advantage of Mikey’s low guard. It was pretty sad to see.

Mikey was the bigger guy through the shoulders, which was surprising given that he was moving up in weight from 135. However, Mikey is clearly a natural light welterweight who drains down to fight at lightweight. Tonight, Mikey was the bigger and stronger fighter compared to a very thin and wiry Broner.

The fight was pretty dull to watch, as Garcia was jabbing frequently, throwing simple 1-2 combinations. He would dig to the body with left hooks, but mostly fighting in a conservative manner throughout the contest. It looked like Garcia was imitating Floyd Mayweather Jr. with his fighting style. Broner was doing the same thing. So it was two Mayweather-esque fighters inside the ring, imitating Mayweather, and not doing a whole lot of actual fighting.

This was not Broner at his best. He looked totally shot out there tonight. You can argue that Broner was weight drained from having to get down to the 140 pound weigh-in limit last Friday. There was big $500,000 weight penalty for the fight. When Broner came in 2 pounds under the limit at 138 pounds, Mikey and his trainer Robert Garcia both said that he’d made a big “mistake.” As it turns out, they probably were right. This was not the Broner that we’d seen in the past. Broner was weak looking, and only capable of throwing jabs and not power shots. When you look at old tape of Broner fighting in the super featherweight division seven years ago, he looked more powerful back then compared to now. Broner was not good at the weight tonight. He clearly took too much weight off during training camp or do you want to call it ‘draining’ camp. Broner was heavy when he started training camp. It would be interesting to know how much weight Broner took off to get down to the 140 lb. limit.

All in all, it was nice solid performance from Mikey Garcia. He did what he had to do for him to win an easy 12 round unanimous decision over a weight drained and arguably over-the-hill Broner. What we learned from the fight is that Mikey DOES NOT have middleweight punching power like his trainer Robert Garcia talks about. Mikey does not hit harder than Marcos Maidana. That much was clear right off the bat. Mikey has some power, but he’s not a huge puncher at 140. There are easily bigger punchers in the light welterweight class than Mikey Garcia. He can hit hard, but he’s not in the same class as guys like Terence Crawford and Kiryl Relkh. Those guys punch with a lot more power with either hand. If Mikey is going to stay at 140, he’s going to need to swerve guys like Crawford. He won’t beat him. With tonight’s performance, I don’t think Mikey beats Vasyl Lomachenko either. The Ukrainian would easily defeat Mikey.

Mikey’s hand speed didn’t look that good. He looked a little slow. If Mikey stays at 140, he’s not going to be able to dominate with his hand speed like he used to. Some of that is age as well. Mikey was real faster when he was younger, but he was out of boxing for almost 3 years until making a comeback last year. He’s not the fighter that beat Orlando Salido in 2013. As far as Mikey fighting the winner of the Crawford vs. Julius Indongo fight, it’s doubtful that will happen. Crawford is likely going to beat Indongo. Crawford is with Top Rank, Mikey’s old promoters, and he didn’t end with them on a good note. They probably would like to make the match, but I have doubts whether Mikey will be eager to do that. If this had been Crawford inside the ring with Mikey tonight, he would have lost badly in my opinion. Crawford is better than what I saw from Mikey. But if you remove Crawford from the equation, Mikey would have a good chance of beating most of the other guys in the division. Indongo and Relikh would give Mikey problems with their power and size. Those are natural light welterweights, and they don’t fleshy at the weight the way that Mikey did.

Broner is 28-years-old, but I think it’s time that he start thinking about retiring from boxing. He’s not the fighter he once was, and I don’t think he’s going to come back to be that guy. He can’t fight at 140 any longer. He’s too big for the division, and he has to drain himself to make weight. Unfortunately, Broner doesn’t have the size or the power to fight at welterweight and beat the best in the division. He already lost to Shawn Porter in 2015. Porter beat Broner in a more ones-sided fight than Mikey did. I don’t see Broner going anywhere from this point on. Mikey finished his career tonight. I don’t think Broner is going to retire though, as he can still make money fighting beatable guys. But I don’t think Broner is capable of winning world titles any longer unless it’s under ideal circumstances with him fighting someone that has business fighting for a world title. Broner can’t beat any of the top fighters at 140 or 147 in my opinion. He’s not good any longer. I don’t know if it’s age or the many years that Broner partied and took boxing less than serious. I don’t think he can get back to the level he was when he was a terror at super featherweight and at lightweight. Broner was a good fighter in the past, but he’s not that guy anymore.