Adrien Broner is scheduled for an upcoming PPV bout on BLK Prime, and takes some time to talk to Marcos Villegas about his comeback to boxing after going through a dark period in his life. Broner, who says he still has more to accomplish, adds that he’s put his vices in a box and is focusing on the sport so he can get back to where he needs to be. Check out some excerpts of what Broner had to say below.
Broner on how training camp has been and where he’s currently at
“I had to dig myself out of a dark place, man. I don’t think a lot of people understand. But I’m here now and I’m on top of it and it’s time to make this shit work. I been saying it a lot lately and my motto for this fight is ‘fuck it.’ I really looked myself in the mirror and I said ‘fuck it, no more drinking, no more partying.’ The only way that I can dig myself out this hole is boxing.
“Don’t get me wrong, there’s other ways to get money out here but I’m not gonna be able to do what I want to do and live how I want to live without boxing. So I have to just say ‘fuck it’ and put my head down and go to work and that’s what I did. It was tough. I’m talking about every mile, it was tough. But now we working, we feeling good and we here.”
On what made him come to the realization that he needed to make changes in his life, and why this time is different from past attempts
“What made me really say ‘fuck it’ and do it is because I felt like everybody was just looking at me and saying fuck me — not literally saying it but the way I was getting handled and the way I was getting treated, it was like ‘fuck him, let him go over here and keep fucking up and we just gonna leave him over there.’
“And that’s why I looked in the mirror and said ‘fuck it, you know what? It’s time to really stop the partying, stop the drinking, fuck everything. The only way you’re going to get yourself out of this hole is to get your shit together in the ring, get your shit together boxing, and that’s what I did.
“It’s been tough, man. I’ve had some long nights, I’ve had some long mornings, I’ve had long evenings. I’ve had long days that felt like months but I’m here, I wake up smiling, and even when I’m hurting I’m pushing through it and I’m going to be ready to go, February 25th.”
On if he still feels the temptation to get back into his old habits
“It’s not a temptation because I don’t care for it. It’s more so like sometimes I be disappointed in myself because I know only I put myself in this position. I don’t blame nobody else.
“Could some things have been handled differently, yes, but at the end of the day I put it all on myself and that’s just the way I am. I don’t go pointing no fingers, I look myself in the mirror and say ‘I’m at this point in my career, I’m at this point in my life because of you’ and the only way I’m gonna get right is if I make the changes, if I go out here and get on this road, if I do my track workouts — if I do this. So I can’t put it on nobody else. So that’s what I did and I’m back in a good place.”
On how bad things got for him in recent years
“It was dark. Sometimes you just want to be alone. Sometimes you don’t want to be with nobody and then when you are with people you just still feel alone. A lot of people won’t understand it but it took a lot for me to get out that spot and doing the shit that I was doing, and I had to stop that cold turkey and really just say ‘fuck it.’”
On his goal to become a world champion again and how long he thinks before he’s back in contention
“I’m just going to take it a fight at a time, and my main focus is being sharp on Feb. 25th and after that we’ll see what’s on the table.”