On Saturday night in Atlantic City, HBO Boxing will present 1 of the young future shining stars of boxing, Adrien “The Problem” Broner as he faces a tough UK foe that will be fighting his 1st pro fight in the United States, Gavin “The Rock” Rees, for Broner’s WBC Lightweight title. This is either going to be another stepping stone for Broner as he tries to sweep through the 135 lb division or this will be Rees’ chance to shock the world of boxing and put his name right at the top of the division. This fight hasn’t had its lack of trash talking. So someone is going to have to put up and the other is going to have to shut up, as these 2 will do battle on Boardwalk Hall.
The #1 lightweight in the world, Adrien Broner (25-0 with 21 KOs) is someone that doesn’t really need an introduction. You’ve heard his brash mouth, you’ve heard the comparisons to Floyd Mayweather, and you’ve probably seen the immense talent that he does possess in the ring. With all of that being said, even he admits that all it takes is 1 punch to change everything, but according to him, he will be the one throwing the punch. If you have not seen Broner fight before, he has fast hands, has power in both hands, he uses the shoulder roll for defense, made famous by Floyd Mayweather, and most importantly, he actually knows how to box and use those many skills.
Gavin Rees (37-1-1 with 18 KOs) is a top 10 lightweight from the United Kingdom, and only has 1 blemish on his record, getting TKO’d in the 12th round by Andriy Kotelnyk in 2008. The loss was right after his biggest win of his career as he just beat Souleyman M’baye to win the WBA Light Welterweight title. He comes into this fight as a heavy underdog by most people as the 32 year old hasn’t shown too much power in his previous bouts. He does have good technical skill, but the question is how he will attack Broner on Saturday. I feel his best chance is trying to keep Broner off balance by moving a lot, throwing punches at weird angles, and try to be ultra aggressive and see how Broner reacts to it.
I think this will be a hard fight for Rees to win, just because he doesn’t have the reach advantage to use a jab, he doesn’t have the power advantage to get a 1 shot KO, and I don’t think his pure boxing talent is on the level of Broner. When you combine those factors along with him fighting in a foreign country for the 1st time and facing the best opponent he’s ever had to face, it seems like the deck of cards is stacked against him.
Broner on the other hand can win this fight multiple ways, but I like to think he will be going into this similar to the Demarco fight. He’ll see stay on the outside for a bit, use the jab to box, and slowly get closer inside. He’ll wait to see if Rees can hurt him and when he realizes he can’t, he will end it. I think Broner wins this one by stoppage in round 6.
If Rees can pull the upset off, he will shoot up the rankings, and he’ll probably be able to call some shots. Maybe we could see a future Ricky Burns vs. Gavin Rees. If Broner wins this, he will continue his path in destroying whatever remains from a shallow lightweight division.
A lot of people would like to see a Broner vs. Burns fight, as some think Burns avoided Broner when they were both in the 130 lb division. Another option for Broner would be to move up to 140 lbs, but he has said already that he plans to stay at 135 for a while. Even though we all know that money talks and you know what walks. However, until then, this should be a good fight for fight fans to watch because Broner is the type of fighter that you either want to see him win or you want to see him get knocked out, sound familiar?
