What Happened To Adrien Broner?

By: Sean Crose

He seemed on top of the world once, not so long ago, a terrible representative or the sport who was on his way to stardom, nonetheless.

And now this.

After being dominated this past weekend in New York by Mikey Garcia, many are left asking what happened to Adrien Broner. This was the future celebrity, the Mayweather with a bad/worse attitude, the soon to be face of boxing. Now, though, it’s clear the man can’t beat an above average opponent. All that talk, all that hype, and for what? For three losses in a row to big names? For smack talk after defeat? For endless acts of stupidity outside the ring with little to show in the way of real merit inside of it? This isn’t what the public was led to expect.

Oh, the public was led to expect bad behavior when it came to Broner, of course. In fact, the public was expected to celebrate it. For Broner was supposed to be the big mouth who couldn’t be shut up, the man who appealed to people’s inner mean streaks, the guy who acted like many amoral types wished they could have, but were afraid to. Yet the public was also led to expect Broner to back it all up with big win after big win. Thing is, with the possible exception of Paulie Malignaggi, who some feel actually won their fight, Broner has no big wins to his name.

What he has is a record of having attained lots of belts without placing lots of big names under them. It’s now being said the man was a hype job from the word go. Perhaps that assertion is the correct one. Perhaps Broner was never as good as advertised. Perhaps he was simply never going to become as good as advertised, even if he took his profession seriously, which – until recently – he didn’t seem to on any sort of regular basis.

The question, of course, is where to from here for the Cincinnati native. Many, if not most, hope he will fade away. Don’t expect him do, though. Broner’s colorful image is still marketable, even on a smaller scale than it used to be. There’s still titles and lots of money available for the man in the future. Keep in mind that he’s fun to watch fight – and that people also like renegades (and Broner is most certainly that).

The truth is that Broner took a tough loss and if he’s not the total hype job some are saying he always was, he’s going to want to grow as a fighter – as in actually pick up new things. That might take a bit of learning, but he’s still a young man with a considerable amount of God given talent at his disposal. The story of Adrien Broner might still have some more chapters to go. He’s going to have to play is smart, though, if he hopes to eventually go out on top…if it’s even possible for him to go out on top at this point.