Broner's Trainer Hopes His Fighter Gets Career Back in Order

By Edward Chaykovsky

Mike Stafford, trainer of former four division world champion Adrien Broner (32-2, 24KOs), hopes his fighter gets his career back in order by keeping a level head and staying away from trouble.

Broner is scheduled to return to the ring on February 11th, when he faces Adrian Granados (18-4-2, 12KOs) in a Showtime televised main event.

Granados is as tough as they come. He's never been wiped out, even when facing top contenders, with a controversial split decision loss to Brad Solomon and a majority decision loss to Felix Diaz.

Granados made big headlines last year when he came from behind to score a shocking knockout of then unbeaten Amir Imam, who was the mandatory challenger to the WBC junior welterweight title.

Broner has had a pretty lackluster year, with a single ring appearance that saw him stop Ashley Theophane in April.

Most of his headlines in 2016 were made outside of the ring, with a court case for felony robbery, landing in jail for contempt of court and posting alarming messages on social media that caused his followers to believe he was contemplating suicide.

“I think Adrien’s run into a streak of bad luck. I’m not trying to take up for him but he’s got to realize that he’s got to manage himself a little better than what he’s doing now. He’s got About Billions Promotions and Cincy World Class Boxing Gym so he has a lot of responsibilities. He needs to take care of home first,” Stafford told Boxing News.

The well respected trainer reflects back on the period of time when Broner first entered the gym to begin his long journey in boxing.

“Adrien’s dad brought him down to the gym when he was about seven years old,” Stafford said. “Since Adrien was supposed to be tough, I put him in there with Rau’Shee [Warren]. Both were 55lbs at the time and Rau’Shee was eight or nine years old. Rau’Shee had fought everyone in the country and a lot of them were bigger than him. So he and Adrien sparred all the time. Rau’Shee made Adrien cry a lot. He was the test of the gym back then. If you could make it through three rounds with Rau’Shee then you were on my team.”