Adrien Broner freely admits that he is building himself in the image of Floyd Mayweather Jr., whom he describes as a brother and mentor.
Broner is a flashy trash-talker who seeks attention in any way he can get it. Whether it’s by leaking sex tapes or fake proposing to his girlfriend after fights, Broner wants people to know who he is and pay attention to him so that they buy his fights.
Where did he get that business model from? Floyd, of course.
“Floyd Mayweather is like a big brother to me,” Broner said on Showtime’s All Access program leading up to his fight with Marcos Maidana. “He’s a mentor, he’s somebody I can talk to about anything. Floyd took boxing to the next level. For me to see that firsthand, it only made me want to try to match what he’d done, or go past that.”
Mayweather, who earlier in the year switched networks from HBO to Showtime, was interviewed for the program and confirmed Broner speaks to him frequently.
“Every day Adrien calls me and asks me about different things. He wants to become a pay-per-view star. He has the remedy, but he has to know when to turn it on and when to turn it off,” said Mayweather.
Mayweather seems to have his business in order and know when to turn it on and off (except for when it comes to his drama with Princess Love, though he might actually enjoy the headlines he receives for that gossip). What Broner needs to learn is which ways to create hype.
Talking about stealing someone’s girlfriend and turning her into the central focus of a fight is good for publicity. So is fake proposing. But burning money and leaking disgusting sex tapes of yourself probably is not what you want to do.
But as far as Broner’s ability to surpass Floyd, he’ll have to really step up his game in the ring first before he can come close to matching Mayweather. We will give him credit, though, because it sure looks like he has a knack for drawing attention.
