Showtime Quick Picks

Adrien Broner vs. Khabib Allakhverdiev: Few things annoy boxing fans like high level cards on the same night at roughly the same time.  But this Saturday Showtime and HBO are doing just that, annoying boxing fans.  While Lucas Matthysse will headlines HBO's card Showtime has Adrien Broner (30-2, 22 KO) in its main event.  Broner will be taking on Khabib Allakhverdiev (19-1, 9 KO) in a 12-round fight for a vacant WBA junior welterweight title.  This is a fight that has received much buzz but it is a fight that will be very influential on Broner's career.  If Broner loses that makes back-to-back defeats and really hurts his career and status as a top fighter.  However, a win would keep him right in the mix with the best junior welterweights in the game.  As for Allakhverdiev, this will be by far the biggest fight of his career and a win would do wonders for him.  Fans have seen how good Broner can be when he takes his craft seriously, which is why they get so frustrated with him when he doesn't.  At his best Broner has fast hands, good defense, and knockout power.  Yet at his worst he is a fighter who only looks to counter and doesn't throw many punches and his defense is not as good as it once was.  Broner is an orthodox fighter with a very good up and down jab.  Along with that he has a strong straight right hand and a good left hook.  Broner definitely likes to play the role of counter puncher but too often he goes rounds without throwing much at all.  Yet even in defeats Broner flashes brilliance like when he dropped Shawn Porter in the 12th round of their June fight which Broner lost.  If Broner can get his act together he could be a great one, but he has to want to be great.  Across the ring from Broner will be Allakhverdiev who fights out of the southpaw stance.  It has been a long layoff for Allakhverdiev who last fought in April of 2014 on the undercard of Manny Pacquiao's rematch with Timothy Bradley.  Allakhverdiev who hails from Russia uses his jab to set up a good straight left hand but he isn't the type of fighter who looks for knockout.  Even when the Russian throws his right hook there isn't much on it and he is a fighter who wins fights on the scorecards.  This will be a big fight for Allakhverdiev whose lost to Jessie Vargas in his last bout, Vargas also happens to be the biggest name on his resume.  While Vargas is a solid fighter who doesn't come close to the talent of Broner who will win this fight by the way of unanimous decision.


Jose Pedraza vs. Edner Cherry: The co-feature of Saturday's Showtime card should be a good one.  That bout pits the young, undefeated Puerto Rican Jose Pedraza ( 20-0, 12 KO) against the battle tested veteran Edner Cherry (34-6-2, 19 KO).  The two pugilists are scheduled to go 12 rounds for Pedraza's IBF junior lightweight title.  Pedraza won that vacant title by beating Andrey Klimov in June of this year.  Meanwhile Cherry has been very impressive since his last loss in 2008 which came at the hands of Timothy Bradley.  Since then he has gone 10-0 with seven knockout and one no contest.  While those wins came against average and sub par fighters Cherry still put himself in a place to compete for a title.  Experience will be in Cherry's favor as he has been in with the better opponents like Bradley and Paulie Malignaggi.  However, even with his recent string of success Cherry is much closer to the end than Pedraza is.  Pedraza is still on the rise and the orthodox fighter is skilled offensively.  While he has decent power he isn't a one-punch knockout type fighter.  He uses his jab to set up power punches like his very good straight right hand and he also has a nice left hook.  Perhaps the best thing that Pedraza does is attack the body early and often, which is something that could be important against an older fighter like Cherry.  Cherry is also an orthodox fighter and he has a quick jab.  He also has a bad habit of retreating on defense with his hands down but he has a good chin and has never been stopped.  At times Cherry looks like a hesitant puncher and usually keeps his right hand planted firmly next to his chin.  When Cherry does throw that right hand it is powerful but also incredibly wild.  Cherry does have a nice left hook, the only problem is that he doesn't use it very often.  This fight should be all Pedraza.  Cherry certainly has some skills but he won't be busy enough to beat the young Puerto Rican who will win the fight via unanimous decision.