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Adrien Broner came into tonight with three wins in his career that could have gone the other way. Tonight, he officially lost for the first time, as Marcos Maidana floored him twice, outworked him all night, and clearly won at the Alamodome, sending the roof off the building as 2013 closed with a big-time upset and a major happening for Showtime Sports and all of boxing.
Judges had it 117-109, 116-109, and 115-110 for Maidana. I had it 116-108, and BLH's Ryan Bivins and Kory Kitchen both had it 116-110 for Maidana. Showtime's Al Bernstein had it 115-111, Paulie Malignaggi had it 115-111, and Steve Farhood had it 114-111, all for Maidana.
Broner (27-1, 22 KO) went down in the second round and was badly hurt, but managed to survive the round. He took a lot of big shots that he was able to handle, but Maidana (35-3, 31 KO) definitely made him respect the power early and often. Broner went down again in round eight, and after that, while tying Maidana up, he took what was indeed an intentional headbutt from the Argentinean, but Broner's reaction was the flop of all flops, the worst acting job you'll see in sports. Maidana lost a point for the butt, which was fair, but the next round he outworked Broner so severely that a 10-8 could easily have been scored his way anyway.
By the latter stages of the fight, trainer Mike Stafford made it clear to Broner that he needed a knockout, and it just wasn't there. Broner never got his speed going tonight, because Maidana took that away from him pretty early by wearing him out not only with big shots, but by making Broner expend energy just to keep Maidana off of him. There was nothing about this fight that went well for Broner, and he never had Maidana in any danger, hurting him most with a late hook after the bell in round 11.