By: Hans Themistode
Although the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville Connecticut was empty, the disapproving boo’s could be heard from a mile away.
Adrien Broner’s unanimous decision victory over Jovanie Santiago, was ultimately viewed as a controversial outcome. Not only did fans place their hands on top of their heads in disbelief, but even pound-for-pound star Terence Crawford found himself scratching his forehead the moment Broner’s hand was raised.
“I thought dude won but what I know,” said Crawford on his Twitter account.
Despite being out landed 98 to 207, Broner won going away. With scores of 115-112, 117-110 and 116-111 even Broner felt that the scorecards were a little off. That’s to say, he believes he should have won by a larger margin.
“I felt good, I felt like I only lost three rounds,” said Broner during his post-fight presser. “I beat him easy off the jab, I was doing my thing and having fun.”
As is the theme with Broner’s career, the former multiple division titlist simply didn’t let his hands go. While Santiago would load up on shots and go for broke, Broner appeared content with shelling up and throwing one punch at a time. It may have been the sort of game plan that made fans rip out their hair as they screamed for him to throw more shots, Broner explained why he took the low output approach.
“He was trying to counter me so I had to be smart and work off my jab. I had to use my jab and get him to open up and that’s when I was able to counter punch.”
Normally, Broner’s low punch output works against him. Losses against Shawn Porter, Marcos Maidana, Mikey Garcia and Manny Pacquiao were chalked up to Broner simply getting outworked. Santiago, to his credit, took a page out of those aforementioned names playbook and attempted to grab the biggest win of his career. That, of course, didn’t work in his favor.
When taking a closer look at the judge’s scorecards, it was clear that Broner simply wasn’t going to lose. Two of the three judges in Tom Carusone and Peter Hary both scored the first round for Broner. Yet, in that round, Broner did not land a single punch. It was moments such as these that indicated Broner was on the judge’s good side on the night.
“The judges were on my side this time.”
Outside of his two-year layoff, it’s been a long time since Broner made numerous trips to the ring during a 12-month span. In both 2019 and 2018, the 140 pounder fought just once. His inactive trend is something that he hopes is now behind him.
Although he was happy with the win, Broner knows good and well that it wasn’t a vintage performance. That however, will change if his management team can simply line up more fights for him this year.
“I want to get right back in the gym and get active. Once I get back in the gym, a lot of things are going to start waking back up. You’ll start seeing a lot better performances but even this performance after being two years off, I feel like I performed good.”
