We don’t have too long to wait until the hugely interesting Mikey Garcia-Adrien Broner fight (July 29) and understandably Broner’s trainer Mike Stafford is talking a great, great fight going in. Speaking with RingTV.com, AB’s coach said that all the negative stuff aimed at his fighter from the writers and the fans is unjustified and that as Broner, 33-2(24) has “never lost to a Mexican,” and has “never lost at 140,” his chances of beating the unbeaten Garcia should in no way be marginalised.
Stafford, in speaking with The Bible of Boxing, said too much emphasis is being placed on Broner’s two defeats, to Marcos Maidana and Shawn Porter. Stafford insists that had there been “one more round” in either fight, his fighter would have prevailed with a KO.
This is debatable, with regards to the Maidana fight especially. It’s funny, but many fans recall how the Argentine warrior both burst Broner’s bubble in taking his unbeaten record from him and gave him a sound beating. Okay, Broner did have an overly relaxed, ‘I’ve-got-this-in-the-bag’ Porter in trouble and down in the final round of that fight, but no-one has ever stopped Porter, so what makes anyone think Broner would have done it?
Still, Stafford is almost certainly correct when he says we can expect a great fight on July 29.
“OK, this is the good guy versus the bad guy,” Stafford said. “It would be one thing if AB had ever been knocked out. It would be different if we didn’t have no knockouts. People bring up the past, the Porter fight. He was an overweight welterweight and we woulda knocked him out with one more round. They bring up Maidana; one more round and we would have knocked him out. He had a bad night against Maidana and almost knocked him out. Then, Maidana lost twice and retired and didn’t give us another shot.”
While a return fight between Broner and Maidana would have been interesting, why on earth would Maidana have turned down the two big money fights he was offered against Floyd Mayweather? But as Stafford says, the past is the past, and now AB, or “The Problem” has an even bigger fight in front of him. If he can overcome the odds and topple the riding high Garcia, 36-0(30) it’s highly possible many fans will both forgive and forget the two losses on the four-weight champ’s record.