(Photo credit: Tom Casino/Showtime) By Allan Fox: Adrien Broner (26-0, 22 KO’s) is a clear favorite to defeat WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (32-4, 7 KO’s) on Saturday night, but there are still major questions that Broner will need to answer tomorrow night about how he’s going to try and handle Malignaggi’s movement in this fight.
This isn’t the first time in Malignaggi’s career that he’s faced an opponent with more power than him, because he’s arguably been the weaker fighter in most of his fights during.
Somehow though Malignaggi has found a way to win in most of his fights he’s had, and he’s done this by using movement to keep the stronger, slower, more stationary fighters from landing their big knockout punches.
While Broner may be compared frequently to Floyd Mayweather Jr. with his fighting style and his persona outside of the ring, but he’s a million light years apart from Mayeather when it comes to his ability to move around the ring.
Broner doesn’t move well at all. His fights typically show him standing still against a guy that has come to him or he’s walking slowly after his opponent. There isn’t the fast footwork that Mayweather Jr. had during much of his career until he started slowing down in his 30s.
Broner is going to have to show that he can go after Malignaggi, cut off the ring and force him to fight because Malignaggi isn’t going to do this voluntarily.
The Broner-Malignaggi fight reminds me a lot of Malignaggi’s two fights against Juan Diaz in 2009. Diaz was the same kind of stationary fighter that plodded after his opponents and who was more comfortable standing in one spot looking to trade rather than moving around the quickly to go after an opponent.
This is why Malignaggi was able to take advantage of Diaz’s inability to move by using his jab to hit Diaz and move away before he could land anything.
It was frustrating for Diaz because his whole career had been based on him fighting guys that either came to him or stood in one spot making it easy for him to set up his offense and unload body and head shots.
Malignaggi wouldn’t let Diaz do this, and he ended up beating him one fight and losing a controversial decision in the other.
If Broner can’t cut off the ring like Diaz couldn’t then we could see Malignaggi win a decision by jabbing Broner for 12 rounds. At the very least, we could see Broner exposed by Malignaggi and made to look really bad in winning the fight.
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