By Michael Collins: WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner (25-0, 21 KO’s) has an easy fight for his first defense of his WBC belt against Britain’s Gavin Rees (37-1-1, 18 KO’s) on February 16th at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. There’s really nothing interesting about this fight unless you like watching a guy that doesn’t belong in the same ring with Broner getting beaten up and knocked out.
I don’t know if Golden Boy Promotions was hard up for an opponent for Broner, but this is pretty desperate stuff to pick out Rees. I don’t care if some of the sanctioning bodies still have this guy ranked in the top 15, he’s not in Broner’s league or even close to it. Heck, Rees isn’t even in the same league as Broner’s recent victim Vincente Escobedo.
This fight has got pure mismatch written all over it from start to finish. I’ve seen Rees fight a number of times, and it’s just terrible to watch him because he’s so primitive. No defense whatsoever, and he just leads with his face like it’s a glove. Sure, he’s still winning but look at the kinds of guys he’s fighting, just pure domestic level competition, and not good, none of them.
I remember seeing Rees get pounded out by Andriy Kotelnik four years ago in a 12th round knockout loss for Rees. Believe it or not, that was the last time that Rees fought a world class fighter. The guy has been on a four-year vacation from world class opposition for some reason and now he’s getting a fight with the best guy in the lightweight division. I feel sorry for Rees because he’s going to get smashed to bloody bits by Broner.
All I’m hoping for from this fight is that Broner at least carries Rees for a few rounds so the fight doesn’t end too quickly. You can’t really see Broner’s skills with him knocking these over-matched guys out so quickly. After this fight, Broner really needs to up the level of his opposition because it’s not interesting to see him beating up on guys that don’t belong in the same ring with him and that includes Ricky Burns.