When Adrien Broner was late to Tuesday’s press conference Don King was left asking his staff: “Where’s our problem child?”
For the poster advertising Broner’s fight on Friday with Blair Cobbs, slated for the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood on Friday, it questioned whether Broner, 35-4-1 (24 KOs), would show up to the contest.
It looked like he might not make the media conference at the same venue on Tuesday. He did, but he was late and everyone else, including the 16-1-1 (10 KOs) Cobbs, had spoken by the time the fighter from Cincinnati arrived on the stage.
“We can’t seem to get my guy,” said a disgruntled King at first. “He did show up last time [to last week’s public workouts]. He did show up and he was on time, but he’s back to the usual.
“That’s why we put on the poster [to advertise the fight], ‘If he shows up’. Because everyone was saying, ‘Don’t mess with him, don’t mess with him. He will not show. He will not this. He will not that’. But the devil be damned. I don’t go with that. I give everybody the opportunity to do their thing.
“The guy who’s sitting there, Blair – Blair would be there. Blair would show.”
Cobbs, tongue in cheek, said: “Thank you everybody for showing up to this one.”
At one point, King was asked whether he was confident Broner would be there on Friday for the fight.
“Only God knows that,” the promoter replied.
Then, with word of Broner’s arrival in his ear, King said: “They say he’s here now so when he comes up here you can ask him that question, because I want to know, too.”
Meanwhile, Cobbs had joked: “He’s got a watch. It just doesn’t tell the right time.”
Upon Broner’s eventual arrival, some 30 minutes after the start, the 34-year-old apologized and also thanked those in attendance, saying: “Like I tell everybody else, y’all can’t fight for me, y’all ain’t gonna lose this weight for me, and y’all damn sure ain’t gonna run a mile for me, so I’m not gonna stop doing what I’m doing just to come and please you motherfuckers who ain’t gonna put no money in my pocket.
“What I’m tryin’ to tell y’all was I had to handle my business. I had to get my work done before I talk s***.
“I showed up. Sometimes you just gotta make everybody a believer.”
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