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Bad boy Broner is back

Photo / Stephanie Trapp-SHOWTIME
Fighters Network
24
Apr

The old Adrien Broner is back, y’all, if we take as evidence the recent behavior of the talented and occasionally troubled pugilist who had been walking the straight and narrow path a couple months ago.

Cynics said that wouldn’t last, that if Broner had seen the light, then it wouldn’t last. Sadly, the cynics could be sages, as the Cincinnati-based boxer has been stirring it up on social media and out on the streets of late.

Firstly, check out this snippet I caught as I was leaving Barclays Center Saturday night, after Shawn Porter gave Andre Berto the business in an alley fight which screened on Showtime.

After Porter took victory bows at the post fight presser, I exited, and saw a cluster on Atlantic Avenue, right outside the arena. It was a gaggle of videographers and his crew and fans listening to Broner hold court. And did he. The boxer gave a media man the business, and even ventured into vaguely threatening mode, telling the questioner that boxers aren’t given enough respect and that he’d be unbeaten if he chose to take on fight writers instead of fellow pro pugs. (“We’ll knock all you n__gas out,” he said. “)



He ended the impromptu session by boasting that someone or someones had fired bullets at him but missed. Most everyone present chuckled….

Broner was referring to his being arrested Thursday, after cops took him in from what was described in the Washington Post as a “SUV that was riddled with bullet holes.”

Broner, after crossing into Kentucky, was stopped and told cops he’d been shot at. The cops found an open warrant, from 2014, and took him in. He got out and made it to Brooklyn for the welterweight show.

My take: Broner is entertaining. He’s feisty and fun, to a degree. But then I have to ask myself…is it entertaining? Is it funny boasting about not getting hit by a barrage of bullets? It wouldn’t be if he didn’t duck. It wouldn’t be for his family, his kids, if the next time, God forbid, they don’t miss. We in the sport don’t need mainstream coverage, and “attention from the casuals,” this badly. Here’s hoping Broner, for the sake of his loved ones if not for him, at least, sees the light and stays on a more boring but righteous, and not so “colorful” path. Because we won’t be laughing, not at all, if the self destructive ways aren’t curtailed.

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