Danny Garcia vs. Paulie Malignaggi this Saturday on PBC on ESPN

By Boxing News - 07/27/2015 - Comments

Image: Danny Garcia vs. Paulie Malignaggi this Saturday on PBC on ESPN(Photo credit: Ed Diller/DiBella Entertainment) By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (30-0, 17 KOs) claims to have the perfect game plan to beat 34-year-old Paulie Malignaggi (33-7, 6 KOs) in their fight this Saturday night on Premier Boxing Champions on ESPN from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Given Malignaggi’s lack of punching power, inactivity, advanced age and his poor performance in his last fight over a year ago against Shawn Porter, Garcia might not need to do all that much for him to get past Malignaggi in this fight. Garcia can use a pretty simple brute force attack for him to defeat Malignaggi in this fight.

We are talking about an aging fighter who has little punching power and who already has one foot in retirement when we’re talking about Malignaggi.

“I think it’s a good fight overall. The fans love me,” Garcia said via Fighthype.com. I’m one of the most exciting fighters in boxing and the fans know that. They had 12,300 people at the Barclays for my last fight and that was a record gate at the Barclays Center for boxing. I don’t have to talk a good game.”

Garcia has a strong fan base on the East Coast of the United States, but he’s not a big name in the West Coast or in the middle of the country. Part of Garcia’s problems is he’s not been winning his fights conclusively when facing better opposition in the last two years. Many boxing fans think Garcia lost to Mauricio Herrera and Lamont Peterson.

The same fans were disturbed by Garcia’s lack of interest in wanting to go back and fight these two fighters again in order to clear up the controversy about those fights. While Garcia insists that he beat both Herrera and Peterson by an 8 rounds to 4 margins, boxing fans disagree, seeing the fights as either draws or losses for Garcia.

Garcia is still officially unbeaten, but fans from all around the U.S see him now as having two losses on his resume. Further, the fans don’t understand why Garcia is facing a weak semi-retired fighter like Malignaggi this Saturday rather than facing a top 15 contender. Malignaggi isn’t ranked in the top 15 any longer due to his loss to Porter and his long absence from the ring.

Fans wanted to see Garcia face someone like Errol Spence Jr., Porter, Marcos Maidana, Tim Bradley, Kell Brook or Amir Khan rather than facing a guy who is no longer relevant in the welterweight division. Fans also didn’t understand why Garcia was matched against little lightweight Rod Salka last year. Garcia dragged Salka up to the welterweight division to face him in a catch-weight fight at 142lbs instead of fighting a welterweight. It looked odd for Garcia to drag Salka up from the lightweight division all the way to welterweight.

For Saturday’s fight, Malignaggi is like another Salka in a way. He’s got little punching power, not much size, and he’s old now. You might as well consider Malignaggi a Salka 2.0, because that’s roughly what he is.

“I think we’re prepared. We got the perfect sparring, we got the perfect game plan, and now we just gotta go in there and execute,” Garcia said. “I’m going to be there and fight.”



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