Former four-division word titleholder Adrien Broner has been known to talk a little smack, to put it mildly, during the lead-up to his fights. But there has been none of that for his upcoming bout, and for good reason.

Broner and Adrian Granados, who will meet in a scheduled 10-round welterweight fight Saturday night in Broner’s hometown of Cincinnati, are pals outside the ring. They have too much respect for each other to go down that road.

“I know everyone is used to me coming up here and being boastful. That’s not me anymore. I have a lot of respect for Adrian Granados, and he’s a great fighter,” Broner said at Thursday’s final news conference ahead of the tripleheader (9 p.m. ET) on Showtime’s free preview weekend from the Cintas Center at Xavier University. “A businessman that can fight — that’s what I am nowadays. I’m not a s— talker anymore. I’m a businessman that knows how to fight.”

Said Granados: “We do have a friendship and a mutual respect.”

Broner (32-2, 24 KOs), 27, will be fighting for the first time in 10 months, since he knocked out Ashley Theophane in the ninth round of what was supposed to be a junior welterweight title defense. Broner, however, missed weight by half a pound the day before and was stripped of his belt. He served a month in jail on a contempt of court charge last summer but hoped to fight again at junior welterweight when he returned.

However, continued weight issues caused him to insist on raising the weight limit to fight Granados from 142 to 147 pounds last month.

Granados, who has fought more often as a welterweight than Broner, took the change in stride and is just hoping to pull off another upset. In November 2015, Granados was supposed to be a tuneup opponent for junior welterweight mandatory challenger Amir Imam on his way to a title shot. Instead, Granados, who is on a five-fight winning streak, knocked him out in the eighth round of a strong performance. All four of Granados’ losses are by split or majority decision.

“I’m not here to lie down. I’m here to take home a victory for Chicago and for my people. Saturday, I’m expecting a great fight. It is going to be a kill-or-be-killed type of fight. It is going to be a very exciting night for all of us.”

Adrian Granados

“I’m ready to go. I’ve been through a lot, but we’re ready,” Granados said. “I’m not here to lie down. I’m here to take home a victory for Chicago and for my people. Saturday, I’m expecting a great fight. It is going to be a kill-or-be-killed type of fight. It is going to be a very exciting night for all of us.

“People that think I’m an underdog don’t know me. They don’t know the tricks I have up my sleeve. I plan on thriving in the underdog position.”

In the co-feature, former unified junior welterweight titlist Lamont Peterson (34-3-1, 17 KOs), 33, of Washington, D.C., will return from a 16-month layoff to challenge David Avanesyan (22-1-1, 11 KOs), 28, of Russia, for his secondary welterweight world title.

The tripleheader will open with a 10-round light heavyweight bout: Prospect Marcus Browne (18-0, 13 KOs), 26, a 2012 U.S. Olympian from Staten Island, New York, takes on former world title challenger Thomas Williams Jr. (20-2, 14 KOs), 29, of Fort Washington, Maryland, who is coming off a fourth-round knockout loss to world champion Adonis Stevenson in July.

If Granados (18-4-2, 12 KOs), 27, is to win, he will do so against a very familiar foe in Broner. Their friendship stems from the countless rounds they have sparred with each other and time they have spent together in the gym.

“We’ve done numerous rounds, and I know he’s tough as nails,” Broner said.

Both said that they had many sparring sessions in which the other guy got the better of the action.

“This is boxing. You have good days, you have bad days, but at the end of the day, if you’re having more good days than bad days, everything’s OK,” Broner said. “You’re going to have a day where something happens or you’re just not as focused as you should be and a fighter get off, but at the end of the day, as long as you do what you got to do, you’ll be OK.”

Granados also recounted their sparring sessions.

“Of course. He’s a stud, I mean, he’s a stand-up guy. Anytime he needed me, I was there for him and it’s still the same way today. What happens in the gym I try to keep it in the gym, but I can say that every time that we sparred, he earned it. Every time. And like I always said, he’s a hell of a fighter.”

Adrien Broner

“They were electrifying sparring sessions. We were putting on a show for the camp and yes, that was bloody,” Granados said. “Some days we were both bloody. There were just two dogs trying to get at each other and I was quiet at first, but, I mean, I’m from the neighborhood, from the streets too; you can’t get too tough for me.

“I’m raised in Chicago. We’re the murder capital of the world right now, so I have some stuff to say back and that was entertaining. I actually got a lot more respect like, OK, he’s not going to take that and he can talk some of his own too, so it was cool afterwards. We would just shake hands and go work and we would just chop it up. We got to kick it outside of the ring too, and then he was a real cool dude. Like I said, everybody got their own outlook on him but I seen him as a cool-ass dude.

“He was down to earth, funny and he was a good cat. It was electrifying sparring and it’s going to make for an electrifying fight, and sparring is going to be completely different from the fight because you got less leather [with smaller gloves] and no headgear, and it’s just going to be me and him and we’ll see what happens.”

Granados said that sparring with Broner showed him he belonged in the ring with top fighters.

“It was a great experience. It reaffirmed to myself that I belonged at that level,” Granados said. “They were very competitive sparring sessions. They were very exciting, and it was just a reminder that I belong at this level.

“I helped prepare Juan Manuel Marquez for his fight against Juan Diaz when he beat him by knockout, and, like I said, it was a reminder that I belong at that level because as I was competitive with Juan Manuel Marquez, I was just as competitive with Adrien Broner. Just what I got from the sparring was, like, if we ever fought, it’s going to be a very entertaining, very competitive, very high-action fight. That’s definitely what I’m expecting. It’s going to be exciting for boxing. It’s going to be exciting for Showtime and the people there in Cincinnati, Ohio, so it’s just going to be a great fight. I have a feeling like we’re going to make a classic.”

When they were done sparring, it was back to being friends.

“Of course. He’s a stud, I mean, he’s a stand-up guy,” Broner said. “Anytime he needed me, I was there for him, and it’s still the same way today. What happens in the gym, I try to keep it in the gym, but I can say that every time that we sparred, he earned it. Every time. And like I always said, he’s a hell of a fighter.

“I love him. I love him to death.”