Adrien “The Problem” Broner – the heir apparent to the great Floyd Mayweather – makes the first defence of his recently acquired WBC lightweight title when he faces off against Welshman Gavin “ The Rock” Rees in Atlantic City tonight.
Las Vegas casinos have Rees chalked up as the 80-1 outsider in this clash and those odds are totally ridiculous as he has lost one in 39 against a world class opponent up at light welterweight when he perhaps did not take boxing that seriously.
He certainly deserves more respect that that which the Vegas odds-makers give him, but that said I do believe Broner is a special fighter who will prove too strong for him.
Broner demolished the divisional top dog Antonio Demarco in 8 very one sided rounds, and in Rees faces an opponent who in recent outings has shown signs that a long career may be catching up with him up. He struggled with domestic level Derry Matthews and that doesn’t look like the best form line coming into this fight as he has a bobbing defence which could be picked off by a thoughtful thinking fighterlike Broner.
To me there is no question that Rees is getting busted up and stopped in this one, but its just a question of how.
To me he either gets stopped in 8 or 9 hard brutal rounds when the compassion of trainer Gary Lockett throwing in the towel brings an end to proceedings or Broner decides to make a massive statement and shows the same kind of compassion he showed when blowing away world class Jason Litzau in one round.
I think it will more than likely be the latter and fancy him to get the job done early doors.
At yesterday’s weigh-in Broner scaled 134lbs while Rees weighed-in 134.5lbs
Daily Sport recommended bets:
0.5pts Broner to KO Rees in round 2 – 10/1 General
1pt Broner to KO Rees in round 3 – 9/1 General
1pt Broner to KO Rees in round 4 – 8/1 General
0.5pts Broner to KO Rees in round 5 – 8/1 Ladbrokes