Adrien Broner The Reality Show Problem
By Bradley “The Bulldog” Johnson
Like a child in elementary school, as long as you keep reacting, they keep the performance going. In sports and in boxing it is no different. When we buy the ticket, we are rewarding bad behavior. Whether it’s a Mayweather, JR. Vs McGregor in a modified useless MMA match, or rewarding a P.E.D user with a massive payday upon return. When you choose to entertain the product after wrong doing, you are condoning the behavior.
Adrien “The problem” Broner lost to Mikey Garcia last July, then he looked straight into the camera and said it doesn’t matter because you guys will continue to come and watch me fight. This time he came back to Brooklyn with beef with a New York Rapper, cursed out his boss/promoter on stage, and continued the disrespect towards showtime commentator Jimmy Lennon, JR. Usually once the fight is over the tension has settled and the fighters have earned each other’s respect and can give some what of a civilized interview. This was not the case with the self-proclaimed problem. Adrian several times disrespected Jimmy Lennon, had a bi-polar rant with Jessie Vargas, in and out of giving him props and immaturely antagonizing him. I’m not trying to take away from the talented boxer that Adrien Broner is. I’m also not saying that I don’t understand that even this type of promotion sells. I am saying we need to stop accepting it.
Yes, throughout the years we have become accustomed to confident or even arrogant athletes promoting themselves in a braggadocios fashion. No one did it better than Muhammad Ali. Ali did it to get under the skin of his opponent, I don’t remember seeing him blatantly disrespect any and everyone around him. Floyd took a page from Ali’s book, watered it down a bit, added some arrogance, and didn’t bother becoming a leader for a righteous cause. Broner has become a cheap imitation of both and doesn’t possess their talent. “The problem’s” antics come across as a slightly higher version of a “whoa Vicky” or “cash me outside girl” kind of desperate childish attention grab. The latter two have recently become infamous on social media for being some bizarre generation Z train wreck that become more popular the more ignorant their behavior gets.
We are in a world where anyone can become famous for any no-good reason. In this case we have a very talented athlete/boxer who has all the reasons for eyes to be on him, yet they are on him for all the wrong reasons. It’s not just trash talk at this point, it’s almost some sort of scripted middle school cry for attention. Quite frankly it’s becoming a problem.
Broner is not the only one that does it, it just seems like he has pushed the boundaries to a point that no one else is, or ever should. The Charlo brothers, one who was on the undercard of this recent show with Broner, have also been spot lighted for some recent social media battles. Although they don’t seem to take it to the Broner level, they have rubbed quite a few fans wrong and I hope they don’t take the Adrian route of excessive non-sense with an unremovable chip on their shoulder. Some good old competitive talk trash is acceptable, but non-stop social media ranting and threating street beefs will not lead anywhere good.
We may not be able to do much about the ever-changing world we live in, but we don’t have to change what we find acceptable and where we spend our money. The Kardashian’s got famous despite people’s constant hate and distain because people lowered their standards of acceptable talent. Let’s not allow that to cross over in boxing. Let your mouth do 20 percent of the talking and your hands do the other 80 percent and not vice versa. You’re still a top fighter Adrien Broner, don’t let your mouth be the only problem.
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