Underdog earns two knockdowns on his way to upset win.
Argentine Marcos Maidana dethroned Adrien Broner by flooring the American twice en route to a 12-round unanimous decision in their WBA welterweight title fight Saturday.
The hard-hitting Maidana finished the fight at the Alamodome arena in dominating style as he handed Broner the first loss of his career.
The three judges all scored the fight in favor of Maidana, 117-109, 116-109, 115-110.
This was the first loss for the 24-year-old Broner who dropped to 27-1, with 22 knockouts. Broner was also making his first defense of the title he won by stepping up two weight classes to beat Paul Malignaggi by split decision in June.
Maidana floored Broner for the first time in his career only 20 seconds into round two with a devastating left hook. Maidana improved to 35-3, with 31 KOs.
Broner was sent to the canvas by a left hook in round eight. Later in that round, Maidana was penalized a point by referee Laurence Cole for a headbutt to Broner’s face.
Broner hurt Maidana with a punch late in the 11th round, but the Argentine came back in the final round to finish strong. He landed more than 100 more power punches than Broner.
On the undercard, Kazakhstan’s Beibut Shumenov kept his WBA super light heavyweight title with a third-round technical knockout of Slovakian Tamas Kovacs.
Shumenov, who improved to 14-1 with nine KOs, pounded Kovacs in the third round. Referee Rafael Ramos stopped the fight with five seconds left in the round.
Kovacs, who was fighting in the United States for the first time, got off to a rocky start as he was floored in the first round with a left hook.
Separately, Leo Santa Cruz successfully defended his WBC super bantamweight title with a 12-round unanimous decision over Cesar Seda.
Santa Cruz floored Seda in round five and went on to win by scores of 117-110, 116-111 and 115-112.
COMMENTS