Adrien Broner gets past tough Emmanuel Taylor on Showtime

Adrien Broner didn't look flashy and may have further exposed his limitations tonight, but he got the duke in a pretty exciting bout with Emmanuel Taylor, sealing it with a vicious 12th round knockdown that put an exclamation point on his victory.

Broner won on scores of 116-111, 116-111, and 115-112 on the official cards. BLH had him winning 114-113, taking the fight back in crunch time with the late 12th round knockdown, which came on a looping, wide left hook that caught Taylor on the button. Had it not been for that knockdown, Taylor might have won the fight 115-113 on our card, or at worst had a 114-114 draw. But Broner did score that knockdown, it was totally legit, and in the end, he deserved to have his hand raised.

Taylor (18-3, 12 KO) came out aggressive to start the first round, and pressured Broner (29-1, 22 KO) throughout the fight. In a small ring that encouraged action and close quarters, the two traded shots, with both landing effective blows over the course of the bout. Taylor did shake Broner a couple times, snapping his head back with some good right hands, but Broner also did plenty of his own good work, landing uppercuts and good body shots.

It wound up essentially a 50-50 fight, and whether you credit that to Taylor being surprisingly competitive, or Broner again looking like less than he's been cracked up to be, the good news is we got a good fight out of the matchup. It's also entirely possible that it was simply a meshing of styles, one that gave Taylor more opportunities than he had in a loss against Chris Algieri, who uses his legs more than Broner does.

What did you think of AB's performance tonight, and how did you score the fight?