By Keith Idec

Adrien Broner believes his fight against Adrian Granados would’ve unfolded differently had he not suffered a hand injury during the first round.

Broner said during a post-fight press conference early Sunday morning that he broke his left hand after landing a left hook in the first round. That changed his game plan, according to Broner, and minimized the use of a jab he had hoped would keep the relentless Granados at a distance during their 10-round welterweight fight in Cincinnati.

“After I landed my first left hook, I broke my left hand again,” Broner said. “And I had to fight another tough nine rounds with a very, very tough competitor. And, you know, I just wanna pat myself on the back for that. But, you know, Adrian Granados, like I said, he’s a world-class fighter. I knew he was gonna come to fight and did what I had to do to get my victory.”

Two judges – Robert Pope (96-94) and Steve Weisfeld (97-93) – scored the fight for Broner. Judge Phil Rogers scored it 97-93 for Granados.

Broner won on Pope’s card only because Pope scored the 10th round for Broner (33-2, 24 KOs). If Pope had scored the 10th round for Granados (18-5-2, 12 KOs), the fight would’ve resulted in a draw at Xavier University’s Cintas Center.

Afterward, Broner wouldn’t grade his performance. The Cincinnati native simply said that he couldn’t do what he wanted to do because his left hand hurt too much to use it often.

“Until I see the fight,” Broner said, “then I can say, ‘Oh, I give myself an A or a B or a C.’ But overall, I give myself an E for effort. Because I really bust my ass today. I had to dig down the wire to get the victory at home.”

Unofficial punch stats credited Broner with landing 166-of-403 punches overall (41 percent). He landed 20 more punches overall than Granados (146-of-683; 21 percent).

But Broner threw just 92 jabs in the fight, only 9.2 per round. The former four-division champion connected on 23 of those jabs (25 percent). Granados threw 158 jabs, but landed only 23 (15 percent).

“I know everybody be like, ‘You coulda boxed more and used your jab,’ ” Broner said in explaining why the fight mostly was fought at such a close distance. “But when I hurt my hand, I couldn’t jab like I wanted to. So every time I landed a flush jab, I had to wait another 45 seconds. So that’s why I was fighting on the inside. And I had to do what I had to do to get my victory.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for krikya360.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.