Malignaggi defeats Fazekas

By Boxing News - 09/26/2015 - Comments

By Allan Fox: Former two division world champion Paulie Malignaggi (34-7, 7 KOs) ended his two fight losing streak tonight in beating 25-year-old Hungarian joureyman Lazlo Fazekas (27-22-1, 17 KOs) by an eight round unanimous decision at the Principe Theater in Milan, Italy.

The 34-year-old Malignaggi used his jab and quick right hands to dominate the slower and younger Fazekas. Malignaggi was still caught by some big shots from Fazekas occasionally, but it was only single shots. Fazekas was too slow of hand to put his punches together to land enough to give Malignaggi problems like his last two opponents Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter had. Malignaggi wasn’t able to hurt Fazekas with his punches and had to settle for a decision win.

The judges scored the fight 79-72m, 80-71 and 80-71. Malignaggi won basically every round of the fight.

Rather than retire now that he has finally won a fight after two years out of the win column, Malignaggi plans on fighting for the EBU welterweight title against 45-year-old Gianluca Branco. A win over Branco would prove that Malignaggi is the best Italian welterweight in the country. Malignaggi’s parents are from Italy and he speaks Italian fluently despite having lived most of his life in the United States. Branco recently won the vacant EBU title welterweight title last November in beating Rafal Jackiewicz by a 6th round stoppage.

Malignaggi wants to keep winning until he gets a world title shot at 147. He’s targeting IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook, but he needs a top 15 ranking before he can get a world title shot. It seems like a wish that Malignaggi will soon be getting if Brook doesn’t get beaten by #4 IBF Diego Chaves in their fight next month on October 24th at the Sheffield Arena in Sheffield, UK. Brook will need to fight his mandatory challenger if he can get past Chaves, but after he’s free to fight the likes of Malignaggi if he’s ranked in the top 15 by then.

If Malignaggi can beat Branco, he’ll likely get a tp 15 ranking, and this will give Brook and his promoter Eddie Hearn the opportunity to pick Malignaggi out for a voluntary defense. It’s unclear whether the British boxing public will want to see Brook fight Malignaggi, but Brook seems to be able to draw no matter who he faces. Brook was recently able to draw huge crowds to his mismatches against Frankie Gavin and Jo Jo Dan. Malignaggi is a step up from those fighters, and it should be an interesting fight when/if it eventually takes place.



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