By Jermill Pennington: Adrien Broner 29-1 (22ko) is one of boxing most eye grabbing prospects today. As a black man I can’t lie, at times his antics make me cringe. It seems his act is to embody all that is perceived as negative by society, but he seems to be oblivious to any of the criticism.
To be clear I am not one to cast the responsibility of being a role model on a person who gets punched in the face for a living. That said I do believe if you are put in front of cameras you should aware of the way you represent yourself.
Adrien thus far seems to be unaware of how he’s being perceived by the boxing community. With so much negative criticism Broner at this point can forget about being a fan favorite for being gracious and humble. For Broner to remain an attraction there is only one way, he must be spectacular win or lose and I for one believe he can do that.
In Broners recent win vs. Emanuel Taylor his performance until the 12th round would have been considered average. But here’s the thing I love about Broner, when Taylor turned on the pressure in the 12th that brought the best out of Broner. Broner was able to salvage the night in spectacular fashion landing a series of punches mixed with some sort of side step shuffle ending in a uppercut that sent Taylor sliding backward on his rear. Even now I couldn’t tell what kind of punches were thrown in the combination that sent Taylor to the canvas, but I do know it was spectacular. This was Broner getting a win against a decent fighter he was supposed to beat, but even in the only loss of his young career Broner was still able to be quite entertaining.
In December of 2013 Broner took on Marco “El Chino” Miadana for the WBA Welterweight title. This was only Broners second fight in the welterweight division after jumping from lightweight and completely skipping over the junior welterweight division. This fight in the eyes of many would be the first real test for Broner taking on a seasoned, hard hitting determined vet. Once the fight began it was clear that Broner may had bitten off more than he could chew. In a fight that would have been fight of the year if not for the epic battle between Tim Bradley and Ruslan Provodnikov, Broner was sent to the canvas twice. What many wondered is how he would respond to an adverse situation, Broner to his credit got up both times and regained the momentum of the fight momentarily throwing everything aside from the kitchen sink at Miadana. Broner lost the fight by unanimous decision, however after the fight when fighters have their chance for interview Broner had already left the ring in what seemed to be embarrassment. Many seen the act of Broner vacating the ring before doing his interview as weak and spoke to the true character of the man. Maidana on the other hand gave a tremendous amount of praise to Broner saying that he himself had never faced a fighter like Broner. In that fight we seen antics that we have never seen and may never see again, whether distasteful in your opinion I ask, were you not entertained?
At this point I think it’s safe to say Broner won’t be in the running for any popularity contest. His flamboyant, vulgar and sometimes crude attitude has turned off many fans and rightfully so. He has given us plenty reason to dislike him, but in the same breathe he’s also something boxing needs. So often now the fans are left out on how fights are made, rarely do we see guys fighting the guys they should be fighting. In Broners recent win over Taylor he flat out said “my next fight should be Matthysee”. None of the “I have to talk with my promoter” or “right now I want to take a break and then we will go back to the drawing board”. Adrien just flat out calls guy out and that is something I find refreshing that hasn’t been seen in boxing in years. Not wanting to take the easy fights, but continually poking at dragons and waking grizzle bears. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for Broner, whatever it is, it will be entertaining.
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