Maidana turns 30 today, wants Broner fight

By Rob Smith - 07/17/2013 - Comments

Former WBA light welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (34-3, 31 KO’s) turns 30-years-old today, and he wants to know what WBA welterweight champion Adrien Broner (27-0, 22 KO’s) will be doing with his title now that he’s beaten former WBA champion Paulie Malignaggi by a 12 round split decision to take his title.

Maidana wants the Broner fight, but he hasn’t heard anything from him and it’s looking like Broner might go in another direction rather than take the fight against the #2 WBA Maidana. Golden Boy wants the fight, but it’s up to Broner and his adviser Al Haymon if they feel it’s a good move to hold onto the WBA 147 lb. title after how Broner looked against Malignaggi.

Broner looked like a completely different fighter against Malignaggi compared to how he had looked in beating smaller lightweights like Gavin Rees and Antonio DeMarco. The size advantage was gone for Broner, and he didn’t have anything to fall back on because his work rate wasn’t high enough and his power was no longer what it was at 135.

Unlike Mayweather, Broner didn’t have the hand speed, defense and the ability to move around the ring to give Malignaggi problems. Without his weight and power advantage, Broner looked like someone that was doing a poor imitation of Mayweather’s fighting style from the waist up.

Broner couldn’t imitate Mayweather’s ability to move because he’s a flat-footed fighter in comparison to Mayweather. Broner didn’t have the skills to make an easy fight out of the Malignaggi bout, and that’s definitely not a good sign for Broner if he were to say yes to defending his WBA title against a hard puncher like Maidana.

If you were to predict what Broner will do next it would likely be to make an optional defense of his WBA title against one of the lower ranked welterweight contenders like Shawn Porter of Kevin Bizier before vacating the title and going down to 140 or back to 135.