By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Adrien Broner senses the confidence the Garcia brothers have entering their fight Saturday night in Brooklyn has at least something to do with Marcos Maidana’s victory over Broner.
Robert Garcia, the older brother and trainer of Mikey Garcia (36-0, 30 KOs), was Maidana’s trainer when the Argentine slugger dropped Broner twice and beat him by unanimous decision in their 12-round welterweight title fight. But Broner (33-2, 24 KOs, 1 NC) thinks they’ve made a huge mistake by basing anything about their 12-round, 140-pound showdown at Barclays Center on how Maidana beat Broner 3½ years ago in San Antonio.
“I know he ready,” Broner said during a press conference Thursday in Manhattan. “You know, Robert Garcia, he feel confident, you know, after being victorious with Maidana. So I know that’s a little confidence-builder. But he ain’t no f***in’ Maidana, and they know that. He ain’t nowhere near Maidana, you know? And I just feel like it ain’t sh*t he gonna be able to do to stop me from getting this victory. And yeah, he’s confident. He feels like he gonna win, too, but this mother***er ain’t gonna beat me. And I’m dead serious.”
The former four-division champion from Cincinnati then took aim at the media, which Broner believes has portrayed him in a negative light following numerous out-of-the-ring incidents that have tarnished his image.
“And after I make it look easy,” Broner continued, “I want all you mother***ers out here who are writing these bad-ass stories about me to put something good up. The same way y’all go out there and write all these stories when I get caught up, going to jail, doing these 30 days, 10 days, yeah, I want y’all mother***ers to go back and write some good sh*t about me.
“For real. Nah, for real. It’s because of y’all that the world see me the way they see me. You know, I’m me. But at the end of the day, I don’t care. I’m not gonna change because there’s a camera in front of my face. I’m always gonna be me. But I ain’t no bad guy. Y’all got people out there like I’m just some f***ed-up person. If I see Mikey down and out, I probably won’t help him today. But on Sunday, I’ll help. You know what I’m saying? On Sunday, I’ll help him out. You know what I’m saying?”
Showtime will televise Broner-Garcia as the main event of a doubleheader set to start at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Saturday. The broadcast will begin with a 12-round WBC middleweight elimination match between Houston’s Jermall Charlo (25-0, 19 KOs) and Argentina’s Sebastian Heiland (29-4-2, 16 KOs).
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing
