By Keith Idec

When the Mikey Garcia-Adrien Broner fight was announced, Adrian Granados thought Broner would beat Garcia.

Granados changed his mind the day before they fought.

“I picked Broner to beat Mikey Garcia, but then when I saw the way he looked at the weigh-in, I picked Mikey right there,” Granados told BoxingScene.com. “And then I was like, ‘Now I kind of see why he didn’t wanna fight me at the original weight [of 142 pounds],’ because he looked really drained at 140 and it looked like he overtrained because he weighed in at 138.”

Garcia, the WBC lightweight champion, moved up from 135 pounds to 140 to battle Broner on July 29 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. The Oxnard, California, native won a unanimous decision pretty easily at least in part because Broner didn’t let his hands go and was very cautious, particularly during the first half of their 12-round fight.

All three judges – Eric Marlinski (117-111), Don Ackerman (116-112) and Steve Weisfeld (116-112) – gave Garcia credit for a convincing victory over Broner. Five months earlier, Broner beat Granados by split decision in a 10-round, 147-pound bout that seemingly could’ve gone either way. 

“He looked a lot better with me,” said Granados, who lost to Broner on February 18 in Cincinnati, Broner’s hometown. “He was a lot more energetic and he showed more sharp movements, where with Mikey he was just boxing and moving, and more just surviving.

“With me, he was picking his shots to throw punches. With Mikey, he wasn’t really throwing any punches. That’s why I tried to call out Mikey on Twitter, because I know my fight with Mikey would be better.”

Granados, of Cicero, Illinois, settled for a fight against another boxer that beat Broner. He’ll face former IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (27-2-1, 17 KOs) on Saturday night in Brooklyn, New York.

Their 10-round welterweight bout will be part of Showtime’s tripleheader from Barclays Center (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT).

In the main event, WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (38-0, 37 KOs), of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, will defend his title in a rematch with former champion Bermane Stiverne (25-2-1, 21 KOs), of Las Vegas. In the opener of the telecast, Kazakhstan’s Sergey Lipinets (12-0, 10 KOs) and Japan’s Akihiro Kondo (29-6-1, 16 KOs) will meet in a 12-round fight for the vacant IBF junior welterweight title.

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