When the name Adrien Broner comes up, boxing fans will initially think of him as a wasted talent.
The 31-year-old Ohio native was once considered one of the most promising stars and won multiple titles in four weight divisions. As he got more money and fame his career came crashing down due to the lifestyle he chose to live.
Broner also looked up to the undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. and tried to emulate his flamboyant lifestyle and pre-fight antics, even using a similar shoulder roll style.
One big difference between the two is Mayweather didn’t drink or do drugs, he would just attend parties and go to strip clubs all while being sober and kept his head on straight when it came to his boxing career.
Broner lacked the discipline of Mayweather, but he never lacked the talent. One of the few ardent supporters of Broner is two-time Olympic gold medalist and three-division women’s boxing champion Claressa “T-Rex” Shields.
Upon learning the news that Broner has been clean and sober for months during the Covid-19 pandemic, Shields took to her Instagram Live to show support for him and to address the haters who try to bring him down.
In her rant, Shields said she believed in Broner so much that she went out to Las Vegas to support him against eight-division boxing champion Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao.
“I flew out to Las Vegas when he fought against Manny Pacquiao, because I believed if the right Adrien Broner showed up, he would beat Pacquiao’s ass” said Shields. “But the wrong one showed up. He was still on them games. He was still playing. I got so mad at him because when I look into Adrien Broner’s eyes no matter if he sober, no matter if he’s drunk, I seen the fire in him bro. I already know that dude is a hard worker and he is like competitive as ever. So I’m going to speak positive about how proud I am that he finally got himself together and I can’t wait to see what 2021 holds for him.
Shields insisted that Broner is an elite fighter with great boxing skills.
“He ain’t no bad fighter. He’s really a B+, A+ fighter for real. He got a lot of skills. Dude quick and powerful, people are not going to speak about that. Just like I said before, he’s a 4-time division world champion.
Shields continued her rant on Instagram Live by sending out positive vibes to Broner for 2021.
‘I’m happy to see he’s getting his life back together. Everybody always wanna speak bad about a person’s situation, but they don’t never wanna speak about the good stuff about a person.”
