Broner Trainer: Garcia Is 'No Marcos Maidana, No Shawn Porter'

By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Mike Stafford respects Mikey Garcia, but doesn’t consider Garcia the toughest opponent of Adrien Broner’s career.

Broner’s trainer doesn’t think the unbeaten WBC lightweight champion is as good as either of the two fighters who’ve beaten Broner since the former four-division champion turned pro nine years ago.

“He’s no Marcos Maidana. He’s no Shawn Porter,” Stafford said following a press conference Monday in Manhattan to promote the Garcia-Broner bout. “He’s pretty much like the kid Adrien won the championship from in New Jersey, at the Boardwalk Hall [Antonio DeMarco]. He was a boxer-puncher. [Garcia] reminds me of Vicente Escobedo, too. Escobedo was more like Mikey Garcia. Those guys [Maidana and Porter] were way bigger.”

Broner will face Garcia in a 12-round, 140-pound bout July 29 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn (Showtime). The Cincinnati native fought Maidana at the welterweight limit of 147 pounds and opposed Porter at a catch weight of 144.

Argentina’s Maidana (35-5, 31 KOs) knocked down Broner twice on his way to winning a 12-round unanimous decision 3½ years ago in San Antonio. Broner dropped Porter (27-2-1, 17 KOs) in the 12th round of their June 2015 fight in Las Vegas, but lost a 12-round unanimous decision to Las Vegas’ Porter, too.

Broner (33-2, 24 KOs, 1 NC) stopped Mexico’s DeMarco (then 28-2-1, 21 KOs) with a body shot in the eighth round of their November 2012 bout in Atlantic City to win the WBC lightweight championship Garcia now owns. In the bout before Broner beat DeMarco, Broner defeated Escobedo (then 26-3, 15 KOs) by fifth-round technical knockout in Cincinnati.

Stafford, who has worked with the 27-year-old Broner since he was 7, believes Broner’s preparation is more important than the caliber of his opponent because Broner is talented, tough and has a high boxing IQ.

“At this level, you can’t say who’s better and who’s not,” Stafford said. “It’s who’s prepared. And Adrien knows he wasn’t prepared right for the Maidana fight. If we had one more round, we would’ve knocked Maidana out.”

Maidana was trained for the Broner bout by Robert Garcia, Mikey Garcia’s older brother and trainer. That’s among the reasons Stafford expects a difficult fight next month from the 29-year-old Garcia (36-0, 30 KOs), a three-division champion.

“He’s a very courageous kid,” Stafford said. “He’s done what he wanted to do. He went to a division, wiped out a division, like Adrien did, and I just think he’s a courageous kid. He’s got a smart trainer. I remember him from when he was a kid, going to the nationals. I think his father was taking him then. He’s a courageous, tough kid. … We get a unanimous decision or a knockout, that would put us right back where we wanna be with boxing fans.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.