(Photo Credit: Stephanie Trapp/SHOWTIME) By Jim Dower: Former three division world champion Adrien Broner (30-2, 22 KOs) said he wasn’t going to speak to the media before his fight against Khabib Allakhverdiev (19-1, 9 KOs) this Saturday night, but he failed to keep his promise by speaking earlier today at their final press conference at the U.S Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Broner, 26, spoke to the media briefly today in celebrating his game of silence. It was just really strange to hear Broner saying he wasn’t going to speak but here he was speaking and breaking his promise.
It was like someone stuffing their face with food and telling people that they’re on a hunger strike. I’m not sure Broner was aware how childish and silly he looked in uttering the statement.
“I told you I wouldn’t do any interviews or talk. Nothing has changed,” Broner said. “I just want to thank everyone for coming. I will be victorious on Saturday night, October 3.”
We’re going to see whether Broner will be victorius or not on Saturday over Allakhverdiev, but even if he does beat him, it still won’t erase the fact that Broner was soundly beaten twice by Shawn Porter and Marcos Maidana recently.
Beating Allakhverdiev won’t take away the fact that Broner couldn’t cut it at 147, and that he’s clearly not going to be the fighter that takes the baton from Floyd Mayweather Jr. to become the next pay-per-view star in the sport.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Broner believes that he’ll eventually become a pay-per-view attraction, but that’s not going to happen if he’s unable to beat the top fighters in the sport. Broner isn’t going to beome a PPV start by beating fighters like Allakhverdiev. It’s going to take much better opposition than that for him to become a star.
In a sign that even Broner’s own hometown Cincinnati fans have abandoned him as well, the Broner- Allakhverdiev fight still has tickets on sale. He’s not selling the fight out.
“Why do we still not sell out if we are in your hometown?” said Allakhverdiev ‘s promoter Vlad Hrunov.
The fight might not have sold out because Broner did very little to try and sell it. He acted like he assumed that the fans would gladly come to see him fight when he wasn’t trying to help promote it in any real way by speaking to the media and doing interviews.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Showtime were to cut their ties with Broner if he loses this fight. He’s unpredictable with his behavior and you never know whether he’ll pull this no speaking to the media bit in the future if he gets his feather’s ruffled again by one of the boxing writers who tells it like it is.
Broner will be looking to win his fourth division world title if he beats Allakhverdiev, but he won’t be doing it against the best fighter in the 140lb division or arguably even the 2nd or 3rd best fighter. Broner has been put in position by his adviser Al Haymon for him to win a paper title by facing a beatable guy rather than someone that could expose him like Lucas Matthysse.
“A win for me over this nervous clown. I am going to beat him in front of all his friends.”
Allakhverdiev has set his mind out to make the 26-year-old Broner look bad in front of his own hometown fans on Saturday night.
It’s going to be difficult for the Russian fighter to accomplish this goal because he doesn’t have an advantage in any one area over Broner. The only things that Allakhverdiev has going for him is his southpaw stance and catching Broner after his loss to Porter. Whether that’ll be enough for Allakhverdiev to get a win remains to be seen.
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