Did Porter Expose Broner?
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Porter dominated Broner in the main event—dubbed the Battle for Ohio—of Saturday's Premier Boxing Champions card from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, despite what the comically bad NBC commentating team would have you believe.
The fight
wasn't close, and the official scores (114-112, 118-108 and 115-111) thankfully reflected that reality without any unnecessary drama.
Broner, for all his bold prognostications about being the next Mayweather, proved once again to be the ultimate front-runner who is incapable of making in-fight adjustments. His physical tools are undeniable, and when things are going well, he has the look of a potentially elite fighter.
But the minute the going gets tough, Broner gets the heck out of there.
There's no Plan B or C; you could probably even be forgiven to wonder if there's so much as a Plan A when it comes to Broner.
He wants to be a celebrity, not a fighter, and you could see that in every minute of a running, foul-filled performance against Porter that once again left The Problem with tons of problems but no answers.
Broner's only solution to Porter's grinding aggression was to hold, which he did excessively. It finally necessitated a point deduction in Round 11 from the usually solid but on this night awful Tony Weeks. Broner also used his forearms and hit behind the head on the break.
He did drop his man early in Round 12, but by then, it was way too little and way too late for him to salvage a career-worst performance.
Porter fought the perfect Porter fight.
He jabbed his way inside to put Broner on his back foot before swarming in with raking power combinations to the body and head.
Porter was content, like he said all fight week, to let his fists do the talking for him, and this win must feel like a sweet dose of revenge against a foe who did his best to drop verbal but not physical bombs on both Porter and his father/trainer Kenny.
The win places Porter right back into the loaded welterweight mix, while Broner has to once again confront questions about whether he wants to be a professional fighter, or if he even has the maturity to make it past a certain level in this game.