Adrien Broner Still Has a Long Way to Go to Get Career Back on Track

It depends on how you felt going in. Those who saw Adrien Broner as a would-be boxing superstar before a Friday night dance with London-born veteran Ashley Theophane might believe his ninth-round technical knockout at the DC Armory cements that status and warrants a hiatus-ending summit with Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Those who saw Broner as, well, something else were likely less swayed by a glorified sparring session against a guy 38 slots below him in independent rankings and more likely to dismiss the on-camera Mayweather rant as a last flail from a dubious fame-seeker approaching his 15th minute.

The truth may be somewhere in between, but it's surely far closer to one side.

Though he won most minutes of most rounds against the rugged Englishman, the perpetually unmemorable nature of the effort continued to show Broner as what he’s been for most of the last 27 months since suffering a first career loss to Marcos Maidana in San Antonio.

Long on hyperbole, short on everything else.

The one-sided loss to the brawling Argentine not only knocked him from the ranks of the unbeaten, but it also went a long way toward stripping the trash-talking, hair-brushing aura and revealing a fighter with unquestionable physical tools—but apparently in over his head at the highest level.

Post-Maidana comebacks against Carlos Molina, Emmanuel Taylor and John Molina Jr. were the product of favorable matchmaking as much as anything, as was quickly evidenced by a one-sided loss in a return to the elite class with Shawn Porter.

The same has been true of Porter’s recent follow-ups, Theophane and Khabib Allakhverdiev.

Meanwhile, the competitive travails are cast against the backdrop of increasingly troubling behavior after the bells, ranging from a stupidly vulgar interview with Jim Gray following the Molina win to the assault and robbery allegations that dogged him in the final days of the run-up to Friday’s fight.

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He’s expected to surrender to Ohio authorities and let the legal process take its course come Monday, but even if he manages to sidestep criminal difficulty, it’s hard to imagine him suddenly turning over a new persona leaf.

And if that metamorphosis doesn’t occur, it’s even harder to imagine many beyond the entourage's sycophants caring to spend money for another prime-time gym workout.

We’ve seen the movie. We know how it ends. There’s no need to buy the DVD.

Of course, all bets are off if his juvenile post-Theophane claim that somehow Mayweather owes him an audience gains traction as a sellable option for a would-be try at a 50th straight win.

The smart money, though, is a headliner like Money is too smart for such a sideshow.

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What Broner doesn’t get—and has never gotten—is one huge difference between him and Floyd.

While Mayweather was similarly loathed for inappropriate chattiness, ostentatious spending and run-ins with the law, the one thing that still made him a must-see commodity was a track record of meeting every ring challenge faced in a 19-year career that stretched from 130 to 154 pounds.

Had he been derailed by Diego Corrales or shellacked by Shane Mosley, though, he’d have been dismissed long before the bank account reached nine figures and the bust was bound for Canastota.

Broner, as Maidana and Porter showed, is basic-cable sizzle without pay-per-view steak.

And unless he whips up something quick, public-access irrelevance may become his just desserts.