Don’t Blame Broner For His Bad Behavior, He’s Just Following A Successful Template

Published

9 years ago

April 3, 2016

Washington, D.C. — Boxers engaging in morally questionable behavior is an occurrence as old as the sport itself. But while a tendency to challenge social norms hasn’t changed much, the marketability and recognition of such actions certainly has.

Ten years ago one fighter made a bet that would have a profound impact on the boxing business. The most talented fighter at the time was far from a mainstream name and felt a lack of stardom was due to poor marketing by his promoter. The fighter paid to be released from his contract, effectively gambling $750,000 that he could make superior revenue by promoting his bouts himself.

Read “Broner-Theophane: April Fools Day in Washington DC” also at The Sweet Science by Thomas Hauser.

The fighter, Floyd Mayweather Jr, felt that Bob Arum’s Top Rank was applying an outdated formula to their marketing, with the promoter trying to turn him into a matinee idol of the Ray Leonard and Oscar De La Hoya variety. Instead, Mayweather was convinced that embracing 21st century hip-hop culture would be necessary to attract notoriety, and with it more money.

“The [hip-hop and rap fan base] was an untapped market, a billion-dollar industry,” Mayweather’s business partner Leonard Ellerbe told the Las Vegas Review-Journal of the decision to start Mayweather Promotions. “We wanted to capture the urban market. But we also wanted to connect with the mainstream world.”

With a moniker change from “Pretty Boy” to “Money”, Mayweather’s image transition involved an embracement of the villainous role whereby he would extol his superior abilities and denigrate opponents, in stark contrast to the portrayed innocence and bright smile during his early Top Rank days. The flaunting of wealth and habitual presence in nightclubs became other pillars of his new persona, while numerous encounters with the law added to the infamy.

Mayweather’s embrace of hip-hop and ascension to the position of world’s highest paid athlete has seen rappers such as Jay Z and 50 Cent enter the world of boxing promotion, and of course, fighters have tried to get in on the act. None are more notable than Adrien Broner. The 26-year-old has adhered to the Mayweather template, and in many ways surpassed the outrageous behavior of his acknowledged idol.

While Broner has won versions of world titles in four weight divisions, he is far from being the best fighter in the world, and is most synonymous with a litany of incidents that range from bizarre to heinous. What’s more, Broner has been responsible for the release of the scandalous material through social media.

In 2013, Broner released a video in which he flushed $20 bills down the toilet. He later released another video in which he seemingly defecated into a toilet and subsequently flushed away more wads of money. Continuing with his social media activity, Broner posted a sex video showing him having intercourse with two women, and last month added a video in which he threw his change at a Walmart cashier.

And that’s not mentioning his brushes with the law. As a teenager he spent more than a year in prison for aggravated robbery and battery. In 2013 he was charged with battery after allegedly biting a security guard, and in 2015 he was convicted of a DUI offence in which he bragged to arresting officers that he was rich, famous, and had made more than $100 million in his boxing career [a considerable overestimate].

Most recently, Broner was charged with felony assault and aggravated robbery following a January incident in which he is accused of assaulting a man and robbing him of $12,000 at gunpoint outside of a Cincinnati bowling alley. What’s unusual with this incident for Broner, is that the arrest warrant is outstanding and he was licensed to fight in a title bout Friday night in Washington D.C. with an understanding that he will turn himself in on Monday.

To add another dollop of bad taste to the bout against Ashley Theophane, Broner failed to make the agreed 140 pound weight limit, thus forfeiting his WBA world title. Moreover, he refused to even try and shake off his extra 0.4 of a pound despite being given two hours to do so [shaving his bushy beard would have gone some way to making the limit].

Despite the distraction, Broner made relatively easy work of the limited Theophane, as expected, with the referee halting the main event contest in the ninth round to save the British fighter from further punishment. In the days leading up to the bout Broner understandably received copious criticism from boxing media commentators, with many expressing disgust at his behavior. Yet, if the wider general public felt disgust, it wasn’t reflected in the interest generated for Friday’s event. A sold out crowd of 8,172 packed the D.C. Armory arena for the Premier Boxing Champions fight card that was screened on Spike.

The attendance was almost double that of a HBO-televised event in the same arena last month that featured top heavyweight contender Luis Ortiz and a welterweight title fight between Jessie Vargas and Sadam Ali. Conversely, Friday’s undercard lacked major names, with emerging prospect Robert Easter the standout. In another page from the Mayweather template, Broner has formed his own promotional outfit, AB Promotions, and has signed Easter to its stable.

As was the case with Mayweather, no matter how much Broner’s outside-the-ring actions are reviled by media commentators, the fighter will continue to receive high-profile opportunities from event organizers and TV networks as long as the consumer keeps showing an interest. Unlike with most other sports, in boxing there is no universally recognized governing entity that can act as the moral police. And unless a marketable fighter is behind bars, his visibility will remain unaffected by his extracurricular conduct.

In an era when the human attention span appears to be dwindling by the second, Broner has managed to continually generate outrageous headlines and connect with a younger audience through a masterful use of social media. However, beyond the headlines there is a man with a compelling backstory. As his trainer Mike Stafford notes, “When Adrien was eight years old I’d drive the van out to his neighborhood and there’d be 20, 30 kids trying to get to the gym. Out of all those kids, there’s only about four or five left. The rest are dead or in jail or running the streets. Adrien’s one of the only ones left.”

When in a rare reflective mood back in 2013, Broner recalled: “I know what it’s like, to wake up in the middle of the night and say, ‘I’m hungry,’ and see what’s to eat and say, ‘F—, I got to eat syrup and bread again … and water. I know what that feels like.” But playing the role of a likeable guy who overcame the odds didn’t help Mayweather at the box office, and would not be much benefit to Broner, who lacks Mayweather’s extraordinary natural talent.

Fittingly, with Broner’s notoriety at its peak, Mayweather was at ringside on Friday. Broner has habitually called Mayweather his “big bro” after the two struck up a friendship several years ago. Yet on this night Mayweather was ostensibly supporting Theophane, who is part of the Mayweather Promotions stable.

Notably, in recent weeks the relationship between Mayweather and Broner has seemingly gone sour with the pair engaging in a war of words through the media. In an interview, Mayweather criticized the images of Broner throwing change in Walmart, while Broner later countered with a video in which he implied Mayweather was a hypocrite for doing similar actions in nightclubs.

The newfound acrimony between the pair was heightened in the immediate aftermath of Friday’s bout when Broner attempted to jump over the ropes to seemingly confront Mayweather at ringside. Several minutes later during an in-ring interview, Broner challenged Mayweather to a physical confrontation. “I will never let a man disrespect me like [Mayweather did in the interview],” said Broner. “So he gotta see me. I don’t care if we spar or we fight, let’s get it on.” The D.C. Armory crowd, which had earlier booed Broner’s performance at stages in the bout, loudly cheered the braggadocio statement.

Of course, trash talk in boxing can never be taken at face value, and the friction between Mayweather and Broner only served to engender more hype about Friday’s event, which was in the interest of both parties. Indications that the “heat” was manufactured came hours after the event had finished. Standing outside his dressing room, away from the bright lights and cheering crowd, Broner admitted that the dispute between the pair was a “misunderstanding” and that he had wanted to shake hands with Mayweather after the fight to “pay homage to a man I’ve learned so much from.”

Broner has undoubtedly been the best student of Mayweather’s self-promotion techniques and will surely find new ways to denigrate the sport and shock long-time observers before the year is over. He will probably also generate more articles, retweets, and shares than any fighter outside Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao.

As evidenced by the large, relatively youthful crowd that Broner attracted to the D.C. Armory, brashness sells. Broner is adhering to promotional techniques that work in the boxing business. Mayweather’s former promoter, Bob Arum, is regarded as one of the best ever, but even he admitted to a failure in recognizing the potential for a new style of marketing.

“What did I, an old Jewish white guy, know about marketing to hip-hop?” Arum said last year in reference to his promotion of Mayweather. “I knew how to promote to African-Americans, but it was older African-Americans, not the young people. Floyd knew how to connect with the young people, and that was our mistake.”

Ronan Keenan can be contacted at ronankeenan@yahoo.com or on Twitter @rokeenan

Check out The Boxing Channel’s review of the show featuring former WBC World Light Heavyweight champion Montell Griffin, who attended the fights live.

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Ronan Keenan

Bygone Days: Muhammad Ali at the Piano in the Lounge at the Tropicana

Published

17 hours ago

October 7, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Bygone Days: Muhammad Ali at the Piano in the Lounge at the Tropicana

Among other things, Las Vegas in “olden days” was noted for its lounge shows. Circa 1970, for the price of two drinks, one could have caught the Ike and Tina Turner Review at the International. They performed three shows nightly, the last at 3:15 am, and they blew the doors off the joint.

The weirdest “lounge show” in Las Vegas wasn’t a late-night offering, but an impromptu duet performed in the mid-afternoon for a select standing-room audience in the lounge at the Tropicana. Sharing the piano in the Blue Room in a concert that could not have lasted much more than a minute were Muhammad Ali and world light heavyweight champion Bob Foster. The date was June 25, 1972, a Sunday.

What brought about this odd collaboration was a weigh-in, not the official weigh-in, which would happen the next day, but a dress rehearsal conducted for the benefit of news reporters and photographers and a few invited guests such as the actor Jack Palance who would serve as the color commentator alongside the legendary Mel Allen on the closed-circuit telecast. On June 27, Ali and Foster would appear in separate bouts at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Ali was pit against Jerry Quarry in a rematch of their 1970 tilt in Atlanta; Foster would be defending his title against Jerry’s younger brother, Mike Quarry.

In those days, whenever Las Vegas hosted a prizefight that was a major news story, it was customary for the contestants to arrive in town about three weeks before their fight. They held public workouts, perhaps for a nominal fee, at the hotel-casino where they were lodged.

Muhammad Ali and Bob Foster were sequestered and trained at Caesars Palace. The Quarry brothers were domiciled a few blocks away at the Tropicana.

The Trop, as the locals called it, was the last major hotel-casino on the south end of the Strip, a stretch of road, officially Highway 91, the ran for 2.2 miles. When the resort opened in 1957, it had three hundred rooms. Like similar properties along the famous Strip, it would eventually go vertical, maturing into a high-rise.

In 1959, entertainment director Lou Walters (father of Barbara) imported a lavish musical revue from Paris, the Folies Bergere. The extravaganza with its topless showgirls became embedded in the Las Vegas mystique. The show, which gave the Tropicana its identity, ran for almost 50 full years, becoming the longest-running show in Las Vegas history.

—

Although the Quarry brothers were on the premises, Ali and Foster arrived at the Blue Room first. After Dr. Donald Romeo performed his perfunctory examinations, there was nothing to do but stand around and wait from the brothers to show up. It was then that Foster spied a grand piano in the corner of the room.

Taking a seat at the bench, he tinkled the keys, producing something soft and bluesy. “Move over man,” said Ali, not the sort of person to be upstaged at anything. Taking a seat alongside Foster at the piano, he banged out something that struck the untrained ear of veteran New York scribe Dick Young as boogie-woogie.

When the Quarry brothers arrived, Ali went through his usual antics, shouting epithets at Jerry Quarry as Jerry was having his blood pressure taken. “These make the best fights, when you get some white hopes and some spooks,…er, I mean some colored folks,” Young quoted Ali as saying.

This comment was greeted with a big laugh, but Jerry Quarry, renowned for his fearsome left hook, delivered a better line after Ali had stormed out. Surveying the room, he noticed several attractive young ladies, dressed provocatively. “I can see I ain’t the only hooker in here,” he said.

—

The doubleheader needed good advance pub because both bouts were considered mismatches. In the first Ali-Quarry fight, Quarry suffered a terrible gash above his left eye before his corner pulled him out after three rounds. Ali was a 5/1 favorite in the rematch. Bob Foster, who would be making his tenth title defense, was an 8/1 favorite over Mike Quarry who was undefeated (35-0) but had been brought along very carefully and was still only 21 years old. (In his syndicated newspaper column, oddsmaker Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder said the odds were 200/1 against both fights going the distance, but there wasn’t a bookie in the country that would take that bet.)

The Fights

There were no surprises. It was a sad night for the Quarry clan at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Muhammad Ali, clowning in the early rounds, took charge in the fifth and Jerry Quarry was in bad shape when the referee waived it off 19 seconds into the seventh round. In the semi-wind-up, Bob Foster retained his title in a more brutal fashion. He knocked the younger Quarry brother into dreamland with a thunderous left hook just as the fourth round was about to end. Mike Quarry lay on the canvas for a good three minutes before his handlers were able to revive him.

—

In the ensuing years, the Tropicana was far less invested in boxing than many of its rivals on the Strip, but there was a wisp of activity in the mid-1980s. A noteworthy card, on June 30, 1985, saw Jimmy Paul successfully defend his world lightweight title with a 14^th-round stoppage of Robin Blake. Freddie Roach, a featherweight with a big local following and former U.S. Olympic gold medalist Henry Tillman appeared on the undercard. The lead promoter of this show, which aired on a Sunday afternoon on CBS (with Southern Nevada blacked out) was the indefatigable Bob Arum who seemingly has no intention of leaving this mortal coil until he has out-lived every Las Vegas casino-resort born in the twentieth century.

—

I may drive past the Tropicana in the next few hours and give it a last look, mindful that Muhammad Ali once frolicked here, however briefly. But I won’t be there for the implosion.

On Wednesday morning, Oct. 9, shortly after 2 a.m., the Tropicana, shuttered since April, will be reduced to rubble. On its grounds will rise a stadium for the soon-to-be-former Oakland A’s baseball team.

A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.

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WBA Feather Champ Nick Ball Chops Down Rugged Ronny Rios in Liverpool

Published

3 days ago

October 5, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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In his first fight in his native Liverpool since February of 2020, Nick Ball successfully defended his WBA title with a 10^th-round stoppage of SoCal veteran Ronny Rios. The five-foot-two “Wrecking Ball” was making the first defense of a world featherweight strap he won in his second stab at it, taking the belt from Raymond Ford on a split decision after previously fighting Rey Vargas to a draw in a match that many thought Ball had won.

This fight looked like it was going to be over early. Ball strafed Rios with an assortment of punches in the first two rounds, and likely came within a punch or two of ending the match in the third when he put Rios on the canvas with a short left hook and then tore after him relentlessly. But Rios, a glutton for punishment, weathered the storm and actually had some good moments in round four and five.

The brother of welterweight contender Alexis Rocha and a two-time world title challenger at 122 pounds, Rios returned to the ring in April on a ProBox card in Florida and this was his second start after being out of the ring for 28 months. He would be on the canvas twice more before the bout was halted. The punch that knocked him off his pins in round seven wasn’t a clean shot, but he would be in dire straits three rounds later when he was hammered onto the ring apron with a barrage of punches. He managed to maneuver his way back into the ring, but his corner sensibly threw in the towel when it seemed as if referee Bob Williams would let the match continue.

The official time was 2:06 of round ten. Ball improved to 21-0-1 (12 KOs). Rios, 34, declined to 34-5.

Semi-wind-up

A bout contested for a multiplicity of regional 140-pound titles produced a mild upset when Jack Rafferty wore down and eventually stopped Henry Turner whose corner pulled him out after the ninth frame.

Both fighters were undefeated coming in. Turner, now 13-1, was the better boxer and had the best of the early rounds. However, he used up a lot of energy moving side-to-side as he fought off his back foot, and Rafferty, who improved to 24-0 (15 KOs), never wavered as he continued to press forward.

The tide turned dramatically in round eight. One could see Turner’s legs getting loggy and the confidence draining from his face. The ninth round was all Rafferty. Turner was a cooked goose when Rafferty collapsed him with four unanswered body punches, but he made it to the final bell before his corner wisely pulled him out. Through the completed rounds, two of the judges had it even and the third had the vanquished Turner up by 4 points.

Other Bouts of Note

In a lightweight affair, Jadier Herrera, a highly-touted 22-year-old Cuban who had been campaigning in Dubai, advanced to 16-0 (14 KOs) with a third-round stoppage of Oliver Flores (31-6-2) a Nicaraguan southpaw making his UK debut. After two even rounds, Herrera put Flores on the deck with a left to the solar plexus. Flores spit out his mouthpiece as he lay there in obvious distress and referee Steve Gray waived the fight off as he was attempting to rise. The end came 30 seconds into round three.

In a bantamweight contest slated for 10, Liverpool’s Andrew Cain (13-1, 12 KOs) dismissed Colombia’s Lazaro Casseres at the 1:48 mark of the second round.

A stablemate and sparring partner of Nick Ball, Cain knocked Casseres to the canvas in the second round with a short uppercut and forced the stoppage later in the round when he knocked the Colombian into the ropes with a double left hook. Casseres. 27, brought an 11-1 record but had defeated only two opponents with winning records.

In a contest between super welterweights, Walter Fury pitched a 4-round shutout over Dale Arrowsmith. This was the second pro fight for the 27-year-old Fury who had his famous cousin Tyson Fury rooting him on from ringside. Stylistically, Walter resembles Tyson, but his defense is hardly as tight; he was clipped a few times.

Arrowsmith is a weekend warrior and a professional loser, a species indigenous to the British Isles. This was his twenty-fourth fight this year and his 186^th pro fight overall! His record is “illuminated” by nine wins and 10 draws.

A Queensberry Promotion, the Ball vs Rios card aired in the UK on TNT Sports and in the US on ESPN+.

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Alimkhanuly TKOs Mikhailovich and Motu TKOs O’Connell in Sydney

Published

4 days ago

October 4, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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IBF/WBO world middleweight champion Janibek Alimkhanuly, generally regarded as the best of the current crop of middleweights, retained his IBF title today in Sydney, Australia, with a ninth-round stoppage of game but overmatched Andrei Mikhailovich. The end came at the 2:45 mark of round nine.

Favored in the 8/1 range although he was in a hostile environment, Alimkhanuly (16-0, 11 KOs) beat Mikhailovich to a pulp in the second round and knocked him down with one second remaining in the frame, but Mikhailovich survived the onslaught and had several good moments in the ensuing rounds as he pressed the action. However, Alimkhanuly’s punches were cleaner and one could sense that it was only a matter of time before the referee would rescue Mikhailovich from further punishment. When a short left deposited Mikhailovich on the seat of his pants on the lower strand of rope, the ref had seen enough.

Alimkhanuly, a 2016 Olympian for Kazakhstan, was making his first start since October of last year. He and Mikhailovich were slated to fight in Las Vegas in July, but the bout fell apart after the weigh-in when the Kazakh fainted from dehydration.

Owing to a technicality, Alimkhanuly’s WBO belt wasn’t at stake today. Although he has expressed an interest in unifying the title –Eislandy Lara (WBA) and Carlos Adames (WBC) are the other middleweight belt-holders — Alimkhanuly is big for the weight class and it’s a fair assumption that this was his final fight at 160.

The brave Mikhailovich, who was born in Russia but grew up in New Zealand after he and his twin brother were adopted, suffered his first pro loss, declining to 21-1.

Semi-wind-up

Topping the flimsy undercard was a scheduled 8-rounder between Mikhailovich’s stablemate Mea Motu, a 34-year-old Maori, and veteran Australian campaigner Shannon O’Connell, 41. The ladies share eight children between them (Motu, trained by her mother in her amateur days, has five).

A clash of heads in the opening round left O’Connell with a bad gash on her forehead. She had a big lump developing over her right eye when her corner threw in the towel at the 1:06 mark of round four.

Motu (20-0, 8 KOs) was set to challenge IBF/WBO world featherweight champion Ellie Scotney later this month in Manchester, England, underneath Catterall-Prograis, but that match was postponed when Scotney suffered an injury in training. Motu took this fight, which was contested at the catchweight of 125 pounds, to stay busy. O’Connell, 29-8-1, previously had a cup of coffee as a WBA world champion (haven’t we all).

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