Adrien Broner on His Last Chance to Prove He's a Future Boxing Star

Adrien Broner will never be his idol Floyd Mayweather—that ship sailed long ago—but he still has the opportunity to be the best Adrien Broner he can be, and that’ll have to be good enough.

Broner, a three-division and three-weight former world champion, faces fellow former titlist Khabib Allakhverdiev on Saturday night on Showtime for the WBA Junior Welterweight Championship in what amounts to a must-win fight.

In fact, it’s the most important fight of his career and quite possibly the last chance for him to prove that all the hype and promises weren’t just so much dead air.

Broner recently sat down for an interview with Showtime that strongly resembled a mea culpa. The Problem was humble, admitted that things needed to change and promised that he was rededicating himself to the sport after a couple of lean years defined more by what he couldn’t do (and why) than what he could.

He looked serious.

And he’d better be. There are no (legitimate) excuses this time around, and the good-will well has long run dry.

Broner is a heavy favorite fighting in his hometown of Cincinnati, and he’s levels above the rugged-but-unspectacular Allakhverdiev in all measures of natural talent. His opponent is also coming in off an extended layoff (he last fought in April 2014) after suffering his first defeat.

It’s not a gimme (though you can argue it’s a managed risk), but Broner should win and exit the U.S. Bank Arena with another title belt and renewed momentum for a once-promising career that has recently stalled.

The real question is if winning is even enough.

If Broner doesn’t win impressively, struggles or even loses, the path forward is murky at best. The buzzards would begin to circle, and we’d be left to ponder (once again) how yet another uber-talented young fighter fell into the dustbin miles short of his true potential.

In this case the culprit wouldn’t be very hard to find.

Broner possesses elite-level speed, good pop on his punches (even though it has seemed diminished as he has climbed up in weight) and the type of confidence that’s a blessing in boxing if it’s managed right but disastrous if it runs unchecked.

There was a time—and it wasn’t that long ago—when Broner’s constant proclamations of his intent to seize the pound-for-pound throne when Mayweather exited stage left weren’t the punchline of many boxing-related jokes the way they are today.

Talent isn’t the problem.

David Becker/Associated Press

Broner has plenty of that.

But his immaturity and inability to demonstrate the commitment Mayweather (love him or hate him, you have to respect him) showed in every fight has been his undoing. Floyd was the consummate professional, always in shape, putting in the physical and mental work to refine his craft.

He never took an opponent lightly, and he never disrespected himself or the sport in the ring. Mayweather was the best. He said it often, but he backed up those words each and every time.

Broner has done far too much of the former and not enough of the latter.

His antics, both inside and outside of the ring, have bordered on disrespecting the sport (and several times jumped right over the line), and his recent performances have alienated a large segment of the boxing public no longer willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

You can afford to be flashy, brash and over the top when you win fights, but Broner is just 3-2 over his last five (with all three wins coming over second-tier foes) and looked beyond dreadful his last time out.

It was dubbed the “Battle for Ohio,” but only Shawn Porter showed up to battle. Broner showed up to clown, hold and foul his way to an embarrassing loss on network television that shook a few more people off his bandwagon and left the future uncertain.

Steve Marcus/Getty Images

A knockdown in the final minutes didn’t absolve him from the previous 11-plus rounds of no adjustments, no game plan and seemingly no care in the world that he was taking one on the chin in front of a huge audience in a showcase fight.

Broner nearly pulled that one from the fire, but it only further heightened the sense that he was a fighter doomed to frustrate unless something changed.

Where was that desperation all fight?

Why wait until the final three minutes to show the hunger that completes his natural talent?

Hopefully things will be different this time and the fans will get some bang for their buck and time.

Broner’s newfound humility is a good thing, and maybe it will finally unlock the door that allows him to take that next step from elite fighter in theory to elite fighter in practice.

He's run out of chances.

Kevin McRae is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. You can follow him on Twitter @McRaeWrites.