By Allan Fox: Former WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (32-5,7 KO’s) thinks Adrien Broner (27-0, 22 KO’s) is making a mistake if he stays at welterweight [147] or if he moves down to light welterweight [140], because Malignaggi says there are too many big punchers in those weight classes and he thinks Broner will have problems with them.
Malignaggi likes Broner’s defense but feels that he stands in front of him opponents for too long that opens up opportunities for his opponents to eventually land head and body shots against him.
Malignaggi said after the fight “He didn’t hit that hard. He’s probably better going back down to 40 or 35. I don’t even think 40 is good for him because there’s some pretty strong guys at 40. He’s probably better off going back down to 135 and chilling out there for a little bit. There’s some strong welterweights.”
Malignaggi is dead on about Broner having problems with the welterweights and light welterweights. If he stays at 147, he’ll have to fight the big punching Marcos Maidana and Keith Thurman and maybe even Diego Chaves. Maidana and Chaves are possibly winnable fights for Broner, but he’ll take a lot of punishment against those guys because they have good power.
Thurman might be too big and too strong for Broner. He would be laying into Broner with much bigger punches than he was hit last night, and he’d have no problems with attacking Broner’s body, which is something that Malignaggi was finding a degree of success with last night.
There’s also Amir Khan at 147. He would be a very tough fight for Broner if Golden Boy were willing to risk putting Broner in with him. At this point, I think Golden Boy would be looking to protect Broner by not letting him fight Khan, even though it would be a great fight for Khan to big up a big win. I think Golden Boy wants to try and build up Broner a little more because Khan’s already been beaten a couple of times lately.
At 140, Broner has Lucas Matthysse, Danny Garcia and Lamont Peterson. All of them would be tough fights for Broner. Malignaggi is obviously referring to Matthysse and Garcia in saying that there are “some pretty strong guys at 40.” Those guys are big punchers and Broner would have to raise his game if he wanted to beat them. Barely beating Malignaggi isn’t a good sign for Broner if Golden Boy is thinking of matching Broner against the best light welterweights in the division.
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