Shawn “Showtime” Porter (26-1-1, 16 KOs) fought a good fight and deserved his unanimous decision win over Adrien “The Problem” Broner (30-2-0, 22 KOs) on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas, NV. He pressed the action and threw and landed more punches. The judges had no choice but to award him the win. Respectful of his conquered opponent, Shawn explained his win was over a very good fighter, a champion, and he feels it should earn him the right to a fight with Floyd “TBE” Mayweather, Jr., right? Well, that decision is in the hands of one man, and that man is TBE. It’s not likely TBE will select Showtime to be his final opponent. He has bigger fish to fry.
Saturday Broner threw harder, shorter and more accurate punches, just not enough of them to warrant a win. Why he chose to wrestle with Porter is a mystery. He might have mistakenly thought such tactics would eventually slow down Porter, enabling him to gain a later rounds advantage. It didn’t happen, and if there had been a different referee, he probably would have been penalized more than the one point he lost in the eleventh for holding.
Sugar Ray Leonard was at ringside, and early on in the fight he speculated Broner was probing and measuring Porter. Ray thought Broner was trying to time Porter planning to come over the top with a counter to Porter’s jab. On the flip side, Ray also saw that Porter was wide open for a counter left hook, which was the punch that finally landed and got the desired effect, a knockdown in the last round.
Broner never ditched the grab and hold tactic until it was too late. By the time he decided to use his distinct advantages, Porter had already accumulated a nice “punch thrown and landed” lead, which was too big of an obstacle for Broner to overcome. Broner has the gifts and should have won the fight. Against Porter he was stronger, faster, and the harder puncher. He also has a good chin. Instead he chose that “grab that partner and squeeze him tight” tactic. That decision gypped himself right out of a win.
An interesting bit of dialogue circling around the pug pen is Paulie Malignaggi’s emotional diatribe concerning Manny Pacquiao. For some reason, Paulie seems compelled to blab to anyone within the sound of his voice, that Manny Pacquiao had to be doing something, or taking something to enable him to accomplish what he has……titles ranging from 112 lbs to 154lbs. Paulie seems to be falling in line with what the Mayweathers have been saying for a long time.
In support of his opinion, Paulie implies all that is necessary is to look at what Manny has accomplished. Seems pretty weak. Paulie’s offering opinion and not fact. But, in fairness to Paulie, let’s look back at what some of the past greats accomplished. Henry Armstrong owned the featherweight, lightweight, welterweight divisions at the same time. In addition, he experienced a questionable decision loss to Ceferino Garcia for the middleweight title. There were only eight divisions then, so if you throw in four more jr. or super weight divisions, old Hammering Hank would match up pretty good with Manny. Sugar Ray Robinson held the welterweight and middleweight division multiple times, and was way out in front against Joey Maxim on the judges score cards when he collapsed from heat exhaustion. Throw in a few jr. and supers again and wow! It’s also jaw dropping to consider welter and middleweights going all the way up to the heavyweight division and be successful against top contenders. Harry Greb and Mickey Walker did it, and more recently Roy Jones Jr. did it and took the title from John Ruiz. Awesome.
The point is, does Paulie believe any or all of these (and others) gentlemen needed to be taking something or doing something forbidden in order to accomplish what they did? Paulie attempts to have listeners assume “Freddie Roach knows I’m right”. Apparently that’s not the case, because Freddie has hinted some bodily harm should come Paulie’s way. Paulie’s vigor in this diatribe against Manny is puzzling. What’s his motivation? Who is he friends with? Is he looking for favors or payback?
Speaking of which, how is it that Paulie has earned himself an 08-01 title shot at Danny Garcia’s championship belt? What precisely has he done to deserve such a plum? He must have performed well in his last fight, right? No, that couldn’t be it, because he suffered a TKO loss to Shawn Porter? Then it must be his exciting style and those 7 big kayos in 39 fights! Go figure.
