By Dan Ambrose: Former world champion Paulie Malignaggi is really excited about the upcoming Kell Brook versus Errol Spence Jr and Saul “Canelo Alvarez versus Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. fights. Malignaggi rates the Brook-Spence Jr. fight as the best one in boxing right now, above the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight, which he feels is a mismatch. Malignaggi does not rate Chavez Jr. as being a good fighter. He views Chavez Jr. as a flawed guy that is only rated at the top level because of his famous father Julio Cesar Chavez Sr.
Malignaggi thinks that Spence (21-0, 18 KOs) can do some real damage to IBF welterweight champion Brook (36-1, 25 KOs) when the two of them face each other next month on May 27 at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England. Malignaggi wants to see Spence move on after he beats Brook to go on and fight WBA/WBC welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman, who he also rates very highly. Brook-Spence is going to be a great fight. When the smoke clears from that one, we should be able to get a better picture of who the top fighters are in the division.
Thurman has done a good job already beating Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia to prove that they’re not talented enough to kick him off the top of the division. Manny Pacquiao can’t be factored in because he’s off to the side fighting mostly guys from his Top Rank stable. His promoter Bob Arum will likely keep him fighting his guys until he retires from boxing rather than matching him against guys outside of his stable.
“To me, Kell Brook has been the best champion, but Keith Thurman is right there as well, young, phenomenal fighters.” said Malignaggi to Fighthype.com. “That’s the fight I would have loved to see, but Errol Spence is going to be right up there. Errol is a big, big claim to the throne as well. He’s a guy that everyone’s high on as well. So Errol could get in there, and he has a chance to do some damage on May 27th. If he can do that damage, then obviously Spence-Thurman could be a dogfight as well,” said Malignaggi.
Brook always suffered some eye damage in his last fight against middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin last September. Brook isn’t taking a tune-up before the Spence fight. Brook did drag the fight out until May. It would have taken place last year if Brook hasn’t been injured with a broken eye socket from the GGG fight. We don’t know if the eye will hold together from Spence’s big punches. It would be a pity if Brook loses the fight because of his eye being re-injured. As hard as Spence hits, it’s quite possible that he could hurt his eye. If that happens, then Spence won’t get a y credit from the boxing fans. They’ll give Spence only partial credit. It would be good if Brook doesn’t blame his defeat on an injury like he did after the Golovkin fight.
It’s impossible to know how Brook will fight Spence, because he’s not fought a good welterweight since his close 12 round decision win over Shawn Porter in 2014. That fight saw Brook doing a lot of holding to keep Porter from getting his shots off. It was a fight that really begged for a rematch due to all the holding that Brook did.
Malignaggi: Chavez Jr. is not good enough to beat Canelo
Paulie Malignaggi isn’t impressed with what he’s seen of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. during his career, and he just cannot see him pulling off an upset to defeat Saul Canelo Alvarez in their fight on May 6th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Malignaggi has seen enough of the 30-year-old Chavez Jr. (50-2-1, 32 KOs) to have learned that he’s lacking a lot in his basic fundamentals in boxing. He does like Chavez Jr’s size, and he sees that as advantage going into the Canelo fight. However, he doesn’t think that’s enough for him to win the fight.
“I think Canelo is a different level,” said Malignaggi to secondsout.com about his belief that Canelo is a better fighter than Chavez Jr. “Chavez is taking it seriously, I hear. I think he’ll be ready. I just don’t think he’s good enough. I think he’ll be naturally bigger than Canelo, and that’ll be a little bit of an advantage, but I think Canelo is just better than him and the better fighter. I think he’s trying hard and motivated. But this isn’t video games. You got to be better. You’ve got to be good to win,” said Malignaggi.
The opinion that Malignaggi has about Chavez Jr. “not being good enough” to beat Canelo is the same one that many boxing fans have about him. Chavez Jr. is a good fighter, but he’s not proven that he’s truly world class in recent years. The way that Chavez Jr. labored to beat fringe contender Dominick Britsch last December showed that he’s a bottom level contender at 168 at best.
The biggest hint that Chavez Jr. isn’t at the world level is the fact that he was picked out by Golden Boy Promotions to fight their young redheaded star Canelo. Golden Boy has stopped entirely of taking risks with Canelo after his controversial 12 round split decision win over Erislandy Lara in 2014. Since that fight, Canelo has been put in fight where he clearly was going to win. If this was about sports, Golden Boy would be matching Canelo against Golovkin or Daniel Jacobs instead of Chavez Jr.
“Chavez is there because he’s Chavez, not because he’s good,” said Malignaggi. “He’s Chavez’s son, not because he’s good. I think he’s a good kid. I think if he takes it seriously, if he gives it an honest fight’s fight, but I don’t think he’s world class. I think he’s lacking in a lot of fundamentals even, a lot of the skills. I think if he wasn’t Chavez, he wouldn’t be at this level or anywhere near. He’s going to come in there and he’s going to try. He’s going to try his hardest. I just don’t think he’s good enough to win. It’s pretty simple,” said Malignaggi.
Golden Boy Promotions are obviously counting on the boxing public not seeing Chavez Jr. in the same light as Malignaggi, because if the fans see him in the same way, then they probably won’t want to open up their wallets and pay to see the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight on HBO PPV on May 6. Paying $50 for a mismatch isn’t going to please the boxing fans. Even the co-feature bout between former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux and journeyman Marco Reyes is a mismatch. The fight is considered a showcase fight for Lemieux. Showcase = mismatch to make a fighter look better than he is. It would be great for Golden Boy if Chavez Jr. can fight above his head and make it competitive with Canelo and possibly beat him. The fans would feel like they got their money’s worth if that’s the kind of fight they see on May 6th. I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Chavez Jr. has looked terrible for the last five years since his loss to Sergio Martinez in 2012. Chavez Jr. has not improved at all since that fight. He’s improved his conditioning lately, but we haven’t seen him fight, so we don’t know if he’s gotten better.
“Triple G is the goods,” said Malignaggi about Gennady Golovkin. “Jacobs is also the goods. They’re both good fighters. You’ve got to put in a hell of an effort to do that Danny Jacobs did. He didn’t expose anything in that fight. You better come good to make Triple G look like that. Danny proved that. He’s the one that has the goods more so than Triple G lacking,” said Malignaggi.
At the end of the day, Jacobs still lost to Gennady Golovkin. Malignaggi can give Jacobs credit for making it close with Golovkin, but he still lost the fight. Jacobs was knocked down and he was controlled with Golovkin’s jab. If Jacobs is continued to be matched by his promoter the way he’s been since his loss to Dmitri Pirog in 2010, then we’ll likely see the next 7 years of his career wasted with him fighting once or possibly twice a year against lesser contenders instead of against the best. It’s kind of disappointing how many years went by before Jacobs was finally matched against another good fighter after he lost to Pirog. I think that kind of match-making has been intentional. It’s good that Jacobs won all his fights during a 7 year run, but he was beaten by Golovkin. If the two of them never fight each other again, then you’ve got to hope that Jacobs’ promoter starts improving the level of opposition they put him in with.
“I think they’re both up to the challenge,” said Malignaggi about the Spence vs. Brook fight. “I think it’s the best fight in boxing right now. It’s my favorite fight on the schedule. I think that fight will be explosive. I don’t know. It’s close. I don’t know,” said Malignaggi when asked who he’s picking to win the Brook-Spence fight.
