Former IBF 147 pound champion Shawn Porter (25-1-1, 16 KOs) will be fighting at a catch-weight of 144 pounds this Saturday night against former three division world champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (30-1, 22 KOs) on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Porter’s fighting style is the type that the 25-year-old Broner has struggled with in the past in his 2013 loss to Marcos Maidana.
Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions believes that Porter has a very good chance of winning on Saturday, even with him having to drain down to 144 to make the catch-weight. Loeffler likes Porter’s skills, and he sees him coming out on top in this interesting match-up.
“Porter, he lost to Kell Brook but I would lean towards Porter because I think his skills, even at the, I guess the weight is 144? Even at that weight, I would lean towards Shawn Porter,” Loeffler said to Thaboxingvoice.com. “I just think he would have the edge on that.”
Porter’s style of throwing nonstop punches will definitely make it difficult for Broner if he fights like he usually does. Broner tends to cover up and wait until his opponents stop throwing punches before he lets his hands go to return fire. That approach has worked for Broner in all of his fights except the Maidana fight.
Maidana simply never stopped punching, especially in the first eight rounds. This led to Broner getting knocked down twice, and badly beaten by the hard hitting Maidana, who had a significant weight advantage over the smaller Broner. You can expect Porter to have at least a 10 pound weight advantage over Broner as well on Saturday night. Porter puts on a lot of weight when he normally makes the 147 pound limit, which is a real struggle for him to make the weight.
You can bet that Porter will rehydrate to at least 160 on Saturday, and come into the ring with more size than Broner. However, even if Porter and Broner were the same size, Porter’s punching power and nonstop style of fighting would make it very difficult for Broner. To be sure, Porter’s style can be defeated with the use of holding like we saw Kell Brook use, or movement.
Broner doesn’t do either of those things in his fights. He doesn’t hold, and he’s very poor at moving around the ring due to his wrestler’s physique. You can’t expect Broner to move much in the Porter fight. Broner will shuffle around the ring and likely cover up on the ropes to look for sports to throw one or two shots at a time. But if Porter jumps on Broner an unloads punches for three solid minutes of every round, Broner is going to be in trouble unless he has some kind of plan that can negate what Porter is doing.
