Broner’s adviser and trainer approve Malignaggi fight

By Boxing News - 03/07/2013 - Comments

broner451By Eric Thomas: WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner’s adviser Al Haymon and trainer Mike Stafford both have given their approval of a fight between Broner and WBA World welterweight Paulie Malignaggi (32-4, KO’s), according to Gabriel Montoya. The fight will take place in June, likely on the 22nd at the Barclays Center, in Brooklyn, New York, USA.

Malignaggi is reportedly eager to take the fight if he’s given a big enough payday in the process. HBO reportedly wants the fight as well, and that right there could be enough to make this a reality.

The World Boxing Association will need to bless the fight, however, because they already ordered Malignaggi to defend the strap against #1 WBA Diego Chaves.

Malignaggi has recently been in talks with 41-year-old Shane Mosley to defend his title against him. However, the money reportedly wasn’t there to make it worthwhile.

You can imagine the ratings for a fight like that wouldn’t great, as casual and hardcore boxing fans would have a hard time getting excited about watching a past his prime Mosley battling Malignaggi.

Broner will need to move up from the lightweight division to make this fight a reality. That’s a two division jump for Broner. We recently saw Robert Guerrero move up from lightweight to welterweight and find success with important wins over Selcuk Aydin and Andre Berto.

Broner doesn’t have Guerrero’s height, but he does have better power, hand-speed, and defensive skills than Guerrero that’ll help him find the same kind of success.

For Malignaggi, this would be his first big fight since his loss to Amir Khan back in 2010. A Broner-Malignaggi fight might be a lot bigger than the Khan-Malignaggi right.

Malignaggi is coming off of a controversial 12 round split decision win over Pablo Cesar Cano from last October. Malignaggi did not fight well in that bout, and he’s lucky that he didn’t wind up losing because it was a fight that could have gone either way.



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