Theophane picks Mikey Garcia over Broner

Boxingnews24.com

By Jeff Aranow: Ashley Theophane is picking Mikey Garcia (36-0, 30 KOs) to defeat Adrien “The Problem” Broner (33-2, 24 KOs) this Saturday night in their fight live from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Theophane lost to Broner last year by a 9th round knockout. Broner was supposed to have been defending his WBO World light welterweight title, but he failed to make weight. Theophane says he wasn’t prepared for how powerful Broner’s punches were. He trained for Broner’s hand speed and boxing ability, but not his punching power.

The fight turned out to be tougher than Theophane had realizd it would be, and he ended up getting stopped. Theophane learned what Broner’s weaknesses are from that fight. The biggest weakness that Broner has in his game is his work rate, according to Theophane.

Broner spends time in loading up on his power shots, and he then needs to recover from that. Theophane believes Mikey’s punch rate will be a problem for Broner to deal with. Theophane notes that in Broner’s defeats against top guys, he’s not thrown enough punches and that has contributed to his losses.

Shawn Porter didn’t do anything spectacular in beating Broner by a 12 round decision in 2015. He outworked Broner, and had him clinching constantly and moving around the ring. Broner increased his punch rate in the 12th round and had Porter down on the canvas and hurt. In hindsight, Broner probably would have won the fight if he’d fought every round like he did in the 12th.

I’m going for Mikey just slightly, it’s an even fight, they both have skills and power,”said Theophane to skysports.com. ”My pick is mainly because of Broner’s inactivity in rounds and he can be outworked. Garcia is more active and throws some nice, clean shots.”

This is a lot better prediction for Broner than what many in the boxing community feel about the fight. They’re giving Broner zero chance of defeating the 29-year-old Garcia, and they don’t think it’s going to be close at all. It’s hard to see Broner as being able to make it close against a fighter like Garcia, as they represent guys on the opposite sides of the spectrum.

Garcia is hitting the zenith of his career at age 29. He’s heading towards superstardom. Broner is heading downhill as a fighter after having fought well in winning 4 world titles between 2011 and 2015. Broner’s career has looked shaky since his loss to Marcos Maidana in 2013. Broner won the WBA light welterweight title in 2015, but that was due to him facing a weak opponent in Khabib Allakhverdiev for the vacant belt.

Broner didn’t have to fight a difficult opponent like Terence Crawford, Julius Indongo or Viktor Postol. It’s debatable whether Broner would have been able to beat any of those three fighters. Broner is a good fighter, but he’s just not looked the same since his loss to Maidana in 2013. Broner isn’t over-the-hill, but he’s not the guy he once was. He’s in a bad position where he’s not good enough to win a world title at 147, and he’s probably not talented enough to capture a world title at 140.

At this stage in his career, Broner is just a contender, a name fighter, who has seen better days. If Broner is able to beat Garcia and then defeat the Crawford vs. Indongo winner, he would easily be the voted in as the comeback fighter of the year. It would be a huge turnaround for Broner’s career if he could pull off wins like that. Just beating Garcia would be a major upset a great comeback story for Broner. It’s not likely though.

”Garcia is a lot more consistent and hasn’t lost, mentally he lives the life and even when he didn’t fight for over a year, he was still in the gym all the time – they’re different kind of fighters mentally,” said Theophane.

Garcia is more wired mentally and more dedicated to boxing than Broner. Garcia lives and breathes boxing. He’s always at the gym, working out, and studying his craft. With Broner, he’s got other things he’s interested in. Boxing seems to be a job for Broner that he works at only when in training camp. He’s not in the gym daily, and he’s not working out a lot in between fights.

Broner lets his weight get out of hand in between fights, and this makes his training camps like mini-fat farms for him. Broner has to take weight off before he can get down to the serious training. Broner has had to take off a lot of weight for his latest training camp for the Garcia fight due to the weigh for the fight being 140 lbs. Broner hasn’t fought at 140 for the last 2 years since 2015. He’s had fights that were supposed to be at 140, but he couldn’t make the weight and it had to be adjusted.

“If I was his coach I would just tell him that his punch output has to be more,” said Theophane in analyzing Broner’s problems. ”At this level where he is in these mega fights and not being active against these top guys, that’s where he is losing fights.”

Theophane sounds like he would be a good trainer for Broner. He needs someone intelligent that can point out his mistakes and work on those problems. Broner is still with the same guy, Michael Stafford, which he’s been with his entire career. Stafford isn’t improving Broner’s flaws obviously, so you can expect him to not throw enough punches against Garcia on Saturday. That means Broner will lose by being outworked by Garcia.