By Allan Fox: WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (32-4, 7 KO’s) sees a victory over unbeaten Adrien Broner (26-0, 22 KO’s) as giving him a sense of legitimacy to boxing fans and most importantly to himself because some people see Broner as the guy that will be one day in the near future take over for Floyd Mayweather Jr. Broner and Malignaggi will be facing each other in two weeks on June 22nd at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Malignaggi told Jim Rome at CBS “Some people see him as the possible future of boxing, and possibly the guy that takes over for Floyd Mayweather. Beating this kind of guy really legitimizes me a lot from my own personal satisfaction.”
Malignaggi realizes that he still likely won’t get a lot of credit if he beats Broner because fans will immediately start dumping on Broner, calling him ‘overhyped’ and what not. But for Malignaggi, it’ll be enough for himself to feel good that he was the one that gave Broner his first taste of defeat on June 22nd this month.
As of now, Malignaggi is the underdog and if he were to beat Broner it would be a big upset because people pretty much see this as a likely victory for Broner. It’s not a slam dunk thing but people still mostly see Broner as being the one that will emerge victorious in this fight.
Malignaggi says he wants to see if Broner is really as good as some people think he is because he’s noticed that his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions has been selective in the guys that they’ve matched him against. He’s not faced anyone really dangerous outside of Antonio DeMarco, who Broner easily beat. Malignaggi wonders how Broner will do in moving up two weight classes to take this fight against a fighter like himself who has been fighting at 147 for a while now.
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