By Edward Chaykovsky
Back in 2013, former three division world champion Adrien Broner was still regarded as one of the best rising fighters in the sport. There were many who compared him to pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather Jr.
In the fall of that year, Broner was dropped twice and lost a twelve round unanimous decision to Marcos Maidana in a welterweight contest. Broner dropped down to junior welterweight and bounced back, winning three in a row before losing once again last month to former champion Shawn Porter.
According to trainer Jeff Mayweather, the uncle of Jeff, Broner was riding the 'second coming of Mayweather' bubble until that bubble was burst and proven to be false.
"Well, I think what it was is that Adrien Broner is a talented fighter but he doesn’t have what Floyd has, not even close to what Floyd has. He doesn’t even come close, he was just able to ride that coattail until he got exposed," Jeff told On The Ropes Boxing Radio.
"The reality of it is that he’s dug a hole for himself now because it’s only good to be a villain when you win, because you force the people to pay because they want to see you get beat so bad. They have already seen Broner get beat twice, they don’t care about him getting beat anymore, it doesn’t mean anything. Bragging and talking trash like he does now, it’s meaningless, it means nothing."
But Jeff says Broner is capable of bouncing back and there are still plenty of big fights for him, but he needs to change his trash talking attitude and humble himself to make it happen.
"It would be better for Broner to really just humble himself and win some fights, win some meaningful fights. He’s still a guy that can fight, there’s plenty of good fights for him out there for him to really put himself in a good position. You have Danny Garcia, Matthysse, Tim Bradley. There’s other different fighters that are close to his weight or at his weight that will at least put him in a good position once again," Jeff said.
"I just think that if he continues on a path of talking trash and not backing it up, he’s gonna be forgotten. He’s just gonna be looked at as a flash in the pan, a guy who just came on the scene and disappeared."