Antonio DeMarco v Adrien Broner

This weekend sees rising American Adrien Broner (24-0, 20) looks to claim a second divisional title as he faces WBC Lightweight champion Antonio DeMarco (28-2-1, 21) in a bout that really stands out as a very promising bout and one that could go either way, despite the ridiculous betting odds. Despite being the challenger and moving up a weight Broner is a very prohibitive 1/7 favourite, a huge surprise for me.

Broner, a very confident 23 year old American, is a very stylish fighter who may come across as arrogant but is being guided to being an American superstar of the future. He may be better known for his trademark hair brushing, his loud mouth and his outspoken nature however he is certainly a solid fighter with very good hand speed and a solid (though not amazing) defense.

As a fighter Broner has been around since 2008 though really started to come to prominence in 2011 thanks to a very controversial victory over former WBO Bantamweight (and current WBC Featherweight) champion Daniel Ponce De Leon. In that bout the scorecard of Tony Crebs (99-91-Broner) was heavily criticised as Ponce brought the fight and the action and actually out landed Broner in 5 of the bouts 10 rounds. Since then however Broner's career has rocketed with successive early victories over Jason Litzau, Vicente Martin Rodriguez, Eloy Perez and Vicente Escobedo, with the victory over Rodriguez earning Broner the WBO Super Featherweight title. Sadly despite those wins it's fair to say they have generally come against smaller men.

Last time out Broner stopped Vicente Escobedo, though was stripped on the scales for weighing well over the Super Featherweight limit, a move that effectively forced him to move to Lightweight. Surprisingly however there was talk of Broner skipping straight to Welterweight to face current WBC "interim" champion Robert Guerrero.

In terms of his style Broner is a "poor man's Floyd Mayweather Jr" he often employs the shoulder roll though gets tagged and whilst he's a strong fast kid he is also technically flawed and has less than great work rate. Saying this however he rarely looks to be stunned and often walks through shots of his opponents as he comes forward with out ever looking in trouble.

Whilst Broner has been picking off smaller men, DeMarco has been making his name as one of the top warriors at Lightweight thanks to several notable victories despite rarely really getting credit for them.

The 26 year old Mexican has been a professional since 2004. After running off an 8 fight winning streak he suffered his first loss as Anthony Vasquez scored an upset decision over DeMarco. A few fights after suffering his first loss, DeMarco's progress was again slowed as Curtis Meeks scored a draw with him.

Since those marks against him, DeMarco has grown as a fighter and scored 17 wins from his subsequent 18 bouts. Included in those victories were stoppages over the likes of Almazbek Raiymkulov (AKA Kid Diamond), Anges Adjaho, Jose Alfaro, Jorge Linares and most recently a 1 round blow out of John Molina (back in September). Against those victories is a solitary stoppage loss to infamous Edwin Valero back in 2010.

Style wise DeMarco is a pretty typical brawler. He's teak tough (genuinely teak tough), he's crude, he's wild and he's a hard hitter. Whilst he can be made to look silly by a good boxer, as Jorge Linares did he's, he's not a fighter who's going to go away and he's also not a fighter who slows down. He has real heart and the ability to stop fighters in any round with his heavy hands and great finishing instincts.

Whilst Broner is certainly the better boxer here, no question about it, the fact he has fought just 13 rounds in his last 4 fights and the fact that DeMarco is naturally a bigger man than the men Broner has been facing makes this a thoroughly interesting bout. For me it's a 50-50 match up with Broner either taking a decision by boxing or DeMarco getting a tired Broner late in the fight, dragging him in to a war and stopping him late. Broner certainly has the skills to win and make it look easy however I'll go out on a limb and go with DeMarco with a late stoppage proving, for the second time in a little over a year that we shouldn't write off DeMarco despite how crude he is.

Prediction-DeMarco TKO11