Photo by Tom Casino/Showtime
After suffering the first loss of his young career in brutal fashion on Saturday, December 14, 2013, all eyes are on Adrien Broner.
After Jimmy Lennon Jr. read the official scores of 117-109, 115-109 and 115-110–all in favor of Marcos Maidana–Broner’s reaction was one of disgust and frustration, as he simply decided to leave the ring without notice.
He waved for his team to follow him as he retreated into the locker room, visibly in pain.
Perhaps it was a mix of physical pain and psychological pain having taken a thorough beating at the hands of heavy-hitting Argentine, Maidana.
As I mentioned in my preview and prediction piece last week, hubris can spell the beginning of the end for just about any mortal. And as anyone who has watched Broner knows, pride is certainly something he has in excess.
As long as he’s been on the boxing map, Broner, aka Mr. HBO aka The Problem aka The Future of Boxing aka Little Bro, has been trying to convince any and everyone that he’s got next.
According to Broner, it was already a forgone conclusion that after pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather retired, he would rule boxing.
But a funny thing happened on the way to boxing immortality.
It seems that Broner became more concerned with hip-hop tours, a sex tape, and even wiping his ass with $20 bills than actually working on his craft in the ring. And no matter how much God given ability you have, the outside distractions will catch up with you sooner than later.
It just so happens that it caught up with Broner sooner than most of us thought.
Although we had already gotten a glimpse of some of The Problem’s problem’s–regarding his boxing style–during his first foray into the Welterweight division against Paulie Malignaggi, most boxing pundits overlooked those deficiencies and picked Broner to defeat Maidana.
Looking back on it, Broner’s lack of effective defense as well as his low punch output were always very real issues. These things will continue to plague Broner moving forward if he doesn’t address them immediately.
Photo by Tom Casino/Showtime
Those are some of the tangible issues we can break down, but what about the intangibles?
What are we to make of Broner’s mental toughness and the fact that he wasn’t able to face the music–i.e. the post-fight interview–when things didn’t go his way on Saturday?
According to Maxboxing’s Steve Kim, Broner apparently didn’t handle things very well when the camera’s weren’t watching.
Word is that Broner was being a real prick in the lockerroom after the fight, kicking people out from Golden Boy, etc #boxing
— Steve Kim (@stevemaxboxing) December 15, 2013
Considering all of that, Broner’s ability to bounce back after having been exposed is very much in question.
Now, more than ever, Broner fanatics–even his Band Camp posse–know he is not the second coming of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and he is not a lock to be the future of boxing.
Don’t get me wrong, the greatest doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to have a zero in the loss column, but Broner certainly has a lot of work to do to build himself back up not only as a “persona” but also as a legitimate boxer.
So is AB really “About Billions” or just “Another Bust?”
While Broner vs. Maidana did do phenomenal numbers on Showtime–according to Boxing Scene, 1.3 million viewers–only time will tell if people will continue to tune in to watch a guy that generally isn’t likeable and has already been soundly defeated.
Watch Adrien Broner’s entire post-fight interview with Showtime’s Barry Tomkins during the replay of the four-fight event on Tuesday, December 17, 2013 at 10:00 pm, EST. Belew is a clip of Broner’s interview.
