The crowd waited until the early Sunday morning hours for Adrien Broner, most without complaint.
Boxing press conferences are absurd events, hastily put together sideshows where fans, family members and autograph seekers mix in with media members and anyone can ask a question.
The chilly room in the bowels of Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City filled mostly with hangers-on burst into cheers when Broner climbed the steps to the dais, a toothy smile on his mouth and barely a mark on his face.
After five easy rounds three weeks ago against Britain’s Gavin Rees, Broner did not look like he had been in a fight.
He thanked Rees for his toughness, thanked his parents for making such a beautiful baby before urging reporters to make their questions quick.
“I want everyone to get their questions out,” Broner, a father of five already at 23, said. “Because I don’t know about y’all, but I want to have sex.”
And there it is: Boxing’s next big thing had spoken.
For all the claims of robust ratings, strong attendance figures and the involvement of fledgling networks, boxing is enduring a difficult stretch.
The sport is plagued by mismatches, by the influence of shadowy manager Al Haymon and by its two promotional giants, Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank, refusing to make a fight.
But for all the problems boxing faces, perhaps the biggest is what to do when Floyd “Money” Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao leave it.
Mayweather and Pacquiao are the unquestioned elite in the sport, money-making machines who count pay-per-view buys by the millions.
From the hardcore fan to the casual one, most will buy a Mayweather or Pacquiao fight or go someplace that will show it.
They have elevated themselves out of the fringe and into the mainstream, but they won’t be around for much longer.
Pacquiao is 34, coming off a devastating knockout loss and is clearly on the decline. Mayweather has just turned 36 and still winning, but the elusive fighter from the early 2000s has been replaced by a more stationary target. He boxes again against Robert Guererro on 4 May.
Figure it’s two years or less before both are either gone or in a Roy Jones like downward spiral.
There are good young fighters in boxing – Saul Alvarez, Danny Garcia and Brandon Rios, among others – but perhaps no one like Broner, who blends Mayweather’s collection of skills with a power that Money never possessed.
Broner (26-0) is already the kingpin of the lightweight division, a two-division champion with breathtaking talent. He has the financial backing of HBO and the outlandishness that made Mayweather a superstar.
Broner swears that his outlandish personality isn’t camera motivated, that he is who he is, with or without them.
In his locker room before the fight with Rees, with the cameras switched off and only a reporter around to document the day, Broner was at his best. When referee Michael George came in to ask him if he had any questions about the rules, Broner joked if he could just wear tights and a cup during the fight.
When Rees’s cutman, who used to work for Broner, came in to observe the hand wrapping, Broner shook his hand and told him not to feel bad about working for the enemy.
“Boxing is a business,” Broner said. “Get your money. You’re going to be busy tonight.”
Broner’s entourage is deep, but easily identifiable. His crew – dubbed the Band Camp – all wear personally monogrammed red and white jackets. He talks to them in the hours before the fight. But mostly, he talks to himself.
Rees was a scrappy former world title-holder at 140-pounds but he proved to be no match. He was aggressive early, but Broner just waited for his opening.
It came in the fourth round, when he dropped Rees with a perfect uppercut. He continued to inflict heavy damage in the fifth and would have done more had Rees’s trainer, Gary Lockett, not mercifully thrown in the towel. His fighter had heart, but was simply outgunned.
There have been anointed stars in boxing before, occasionally with disastrous results, but Broner appears to be the real thing.
An anticipated showdown with Ricky Burns this summer will give Broner a chance to lock up the lightweight division before he moves up to 140-pounds, where countless high profile bouts await him. Indeed, as Mayweather and Pacquiao wind down, Broner just appears to be warming up. Britain’s Amir Khan could be a future “name” to embellish his record and there could be a bout with Pacquiao’s recent conqueror Juan Manuel Marquez.
Broner would do well to take note of a legend who seems near to hearing the final bell for the very last time and be mindful of staying in a sport too long so cruel to health.
It is 49 years since a breathtakingly brash young man similar to Broner – Cassius Marcellus Clay – became Muhammad Ali and won the world heavyweight title against Sonny Liston.
Sadly, there are serious worries that the greatest figure in boxing’s rich history may not live to see the “golden anniversary” of an event that in his words “shook up the world”.
There are conflicting stories about the current state of Ali’s health. At 71, paralysed and muted by Parkinson’s disease, an affliction unquestionably accelerated by having at least 10 fights too many, he is said by some to be on the brink of death.
The rumour-mongers are largely those family members from whom he has become estranged, notably his brother Rahman and son Muhammad Ali Jr. (one of his nine children) who claim they are being frozen out by fourth wife Lonnie as heirs to his $30 million fortune.
Lonnie and others in Ali’s circle of friends take a different view, saying that while he is obviously very seriously ill, he continues to fight on sustained by medication, TLC and the global adulation of his fans.
Most days are spent propped up in a chair watching old movies and videos of his fights.
He barely recognises those around him but while the end is not believed to be imminent, it may not be far off.
Lennox Lewis, like Ali a former Olympic champion, is among those concerned over reports of his rapid deterioration.
“Seeing Ali as he is now is the greatest sadness of my life,” sighs one of only three heavyweight champions in history to quit while still champion and stay retired, along with Gene Tunney and Rocky Marciano.
“Ali was more than my idol, he was my inspiration. I just wish we could all remember him as he was, a pioneer and the boxer who had it all. What he’s done outside the ring – the bravery, the poise, the feeling, the sacrifice – he should get the Nobel Peace Prize for what he has achieved.”
Another sad aspect is that when Ali goes he leaves behind no legacy for American heavyweight boxing, at either world or Olympic level. )
There is not one big American who has a hope of winning what once was regarded as the richest prize in sport or an Olympic gold medal.
It is seven years since an American – Hasim Rahman – last held an authoritative version of the world heavyweight title now dominated by Eastern Europe courtesy of the Klitschko brothers.
It is also almost 30 years since Tyrell Biggs became the last US Olympic heavyweight champion in Los Angeles. Biggs, like so many others who stood on the Olympic rostrum, never became a professional world champion.
Although immensely talented, his was a career blighted by alcohol and drug addiction.
The dearth of decent US heavyweights is the main reason the top American promoters Golden Boy have been wooing the new British Olympic champion Anthony Joshua.
Doubtless Ali will be reflecting ruefully on his nation’s decline as an Olympic force as his sits in his farmhouse home at Paradise Valley in Michigan.
He will ponder more comfortingly on the day over half a century ago when as the 18-year-old Cassius Clay he
won the Olympic light-heavyweight title in Rome, defeating Polish opponent Zbigniew Pietryskowsky in the final and showing early signs of the unique flamboyancy that was to become his trademark.
He was so proud of his gold medal that he didn’t take it off for two days. Born on 17 January, 1942, the younger of two brothers (Rudolph Valentino Clay was later to box as Rahman Ali) he was named after the 19th century slave abolitionist and politician, and brought up a Baptist.
As a 12-year-old, Clay had taken up boxing on the advice of a white Louisville police officer, Joe Martin, after saying he wanted to “whup” the thief who had stolen his bicycle. He went on to win two National Golden gloves titles recording 100 wins and only five losses.
In an early biography, he had claimed he threw his Olympic medal into the Ohio River in disgust after being refused service at a “whites-only” restaurant where was told: “We don’t serve [blacks].” He is said to have responded:” “Well, I don’t eat ’em, either.”
He later admitted he actually lost the medal and was given a replacement during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics where his trembling hand lit the flame in one of the most emotional moments in the history of the Games.
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