By Scott Gilfoid: Former two belt champ Paulie Malignaggi has his doubts about the character of Andre Dirrell, as he feels that he’s tough enough as a fighter for his standards.

Malignaggi has doubts about how hard Dirrell was hit when he was fouled by Arthur Abraham in their fight in 2010, and he also feels that Dirrell flopped in his fight against Carl Froch in 2009 when Froch threw Dirrell to the canvas in the 5th round while he was attempting to clinch.

Having seen both of those fights, I think Dirrell was clearly fouled by both fighters, and I don’t think he was faking it or looking to get a point taken off. Those were clear fouls. When you hit someone on the canvas, I think that’s a foul. Malignaggi can question but he needs to watch the fight again so he can see Abraham tee off on Dirrell while he was down from a slip in the 11th round.

“There’s a small amount of fighters that you’ll need more than talent to beat, even if you’re the most talented fighter on the planet. Guys like Froch and DeGale,” Malignaggi said to Skysports.com.” Dirrell’s character is lacking and it might cost him. Andre can beat almost 100 percent of fighters on the planet just on talent.”

It’s interesting that Malignaggi is bringing up fights that took place five and six years ago to describe what kind of fighter that Dirrell is in 2015. You’d like to see Malignaggi looking at recent fights before he starts sounding off about Dirrell because that’s how judge someone.

You don’t go back six to eight years and start telling boxing fans what that fighter is going to do in 2015. That makes no sense at all. Malignaggi might as well be predicting the stock market or what the lottery numbers are because he knows about as much about Dirrell will do on Saturday than he does any of those things.

I don’t agree that you need more than talent to beat Froch and DeGale. DeGale has already been beaten by George Groves, who did the job pretty much on talent. There wasn’t much heart needed to do the job on DeGale. Groves beat him on brain power by using movement and not standing directly in front of him.

Froch was beaten by a one-armed Ward, and arguably beaten by Dirrell in a fight in Froch’s hometown.

Fans will see on Saturday night who the better fighter is between DeGale and Dirrell. If it’s DeGale, then he’ll have earned the victory by being the better fighter. But if it’s Dirrell, then Malignaggi will have been proven wrong and he’ll need to re-think his ideas about Dirrell.