When Adrien Broner enters the ring at the Barclays Center on Saturday night, July 29, it'll be his second go around headlining in Brooklyn. The first main event fight being against borough native Paulie Malignaggi in 2013. The trajectory of Broner's career shined a lot brighter then. He was undefeated and had already held titles in three weight classes. But in facing the hometown kid, he most certainly didn't have the crowd in his corner, and he believes such will be the case once again versus Mikey Garcia. Broner doesn't believe African-American fighters get the loyalty from their own fans that fighters from other backgrounds do, much less the support of the general boxing audience.
"No disrespect to my race, but if I was Mexican I would be a billionaire already. Point, blank, period - but, it's more tough for us to reach that certain level because our people don't really back our people the way their people back their people," Broner said following his press conference alongside Garcia in New York City on Thursday. "When you talk about, as we say, n****s. When you talk about n****s, it's so many of us going against our own people that it's like a crab in a bucket. A lot of reasons a lot of us don't prevail is because the people we look up to really don't bring us up like they can," he said.
There was a time when Broner was looked at as the second coming of Floyd Mayweather Jr., in much the manner that Kobe Bryant was viewed to be the heir to Michael Jordan's throne. But although he's got the hand hand-speed, a similar defensive stance, and the personality of his legendary mentor, he never did live up to the hype. Much more, his relationship with The Money Team boss spoiled on a personal level, and for a couple of years they'd take shots at one another until reuniting under the unfortunate circumstances of Broner's social media breakdown in 2016. Prior to them patching up their relationship, it wasn't uncommon for Broner to assert that he felt abandoned and betrayed by Floyd.
While expounding on his own attitude towards fighters who come from where he comes from, trying to make it, the Cincinnati showman elaborated on what sets him apart from how other Black boxers relate to and engage with their own. He drops the names of Rau'shee Warren and Robert Easter Jr., both fighting out of Ohio like Broner himself and both of whom he says he's helped become world champs. Warren, Easter, and others who Broner has taken under his wing along the way may not get the village and town parades Mexican champs usually get when they return home with a title on their shoulders, but AB says he'll be there for him, the same way they'll be there by his corner on Saturday night.
