By William Mackay: Former International Boxing Federation light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (27-3, 5 KO”s) went into a long rant about WBA light welterweight interim champion Marcos Maidana (27-1, 26 KO’s) on the Leave-it-in-the-ring radio show, saying “People think Khan is ducking Maidana to fight me. When you look at it from this perspective, I’m a former world champion. Maidana never won the title. Yeah, he’s a dangerous puncher but he can’t fight worth s—t. What it boils down to is some people think Khan is talking a less of a chance by fighting me. But in the end, I think Khan beats Maidana.”

It’s amusing to see Malignaggi talking down Maidana in an effort to make himself look like the better option for Khan. You can’t blame him for doing that, but it’s hard to imagine Malignaggi beating a fighter like Maidana, which basically is what Malignaggi is inferring since, he feels that he can beat Khan. There’s no doubt that Maidana doesn’t have the best of boxing skills. He clearly lacks the skills of fighters like Khan, Timothy Bradley and Devon Alexander. But Malignaggi appears to be missing the whole point. Maidana doesn’t have to have the greatest skills to beat a fighter like Khan or himself. All he has to do is exert pressure and land one big punch during a 12 round fight, and that’s enough.

With Khan’s history of having problems against big punchers, Maidana is obviously the more dangerous opponent than Malignaggi. It’s strange and a little sad that Malignaggi can’t see that. If he thinks he’s a better match for Khan, I think Malignaggi needs to get a clearer picture of his abilities and re-watch his fight with Ricky Hatton again. Malignaggi basically got bludgeoned into submission by Hatton. Sure, he held tough for 10 rounds before being stopped in the 11th, but Malignaggi took a one-sided beating in that fight. Maidana, a bigger puncher than Hatton, would probably wreck Malignaggi and would have maybe even a better chance against Khan.

Malignaggi continues on about Maidana, saying “Marcos Maidana can punch, but that’s all he can do. He can’t fight. I think Khan can out-box Maidana. I pose a different kind of problem. They [Khan and his promotional company Golden Boy Promotions] may think it’s better to go after me now cause I’m not the puncher that Maidana is, but I bring a different kind of skills and problems to the table. I believe Khan would have beaten Maidana. You got to keep in mind, I think the public if often very ignorant. I don’t want to call them stupid. Anytime some can punch, they forget about all their flaws because the guy can punch.”

I disagree with Malignaggi completely. I think he doesn’t bring a different kind of skill set than Maidana, but Paulie is much less of a threat to Khan than Maidana, simply because Malignaggi has no power and can’t punch himself out of a wet paper bag. Malignaggi is a hit and run type fighter, which is basically what Khan is now that his trainer Freddie Roach has changed his style of fighting. Malignaggi won’t be able to make a dent on Khan’s chin with his little punches. I think the boxing public is aware of Maidana’s flaws, but many of the fans feel that with his power, he’ll catch up to Khan and land a big shot at some point in the fight and end it.

Khan has been dropped by much lesser punchers than Maidana, and was destroyed in the 1st round by Breidis Prescott, a hard puncher but not one in the class of Maidana. This is why some boxing fans feel that Maidana would have a great chance of stopping Khan. Given that Khan has selected to bypass a fight against Maidana to fight the light-hitting Malignaggi, it appears that Khan and/or his promotional company have some concerns about the danger that Maidana would bring. It isn’t just about Khan making more of a name for himself by fighting Malignaggi instead of Maidana. It looks like Maidana is being ducked because he is a threat.

“Marcos Maidana is a very solid fighter,” Malignaggi says. “He can punch very hard. It seems like he does. He’s lacking a lot in different departments. A championship caliber fighter needs to have a lot of weapons. It’s nice to have a big punch, but if that’s all you have to back yourself up with and actually know how to fight for example, which Maidana can’t really do, you’re going to be in some problems when you’ re in with a good fighter.”

There’s no question that Maidana is lacking as a fighter. I have doubts that he’d beat fighters like Alexander or Bradley, and some of the other talented fighters. But Maidana is dangerous for Khan. That’s what Malignaggi is missing here. I doubt that few people think Maidana is the best fighter in the light welterweight division, but they do see him as a difficult opponent for Khan, simply because of Khan’s weak chin and Maidana’s huge power.

Maidana will always give a fighter like Khan big problems, and he would also be very dangerous for a non-puncher like Malignaggi to beat as well. I give Malignaggi very little chance of beating Maidana, because Paulie would have to run all night long and would get hit with much bigger shots than he did in his fights against the small 5’6” Juan Diaz. Right now, Malignaggi if obviously feeling good about himself because of his recent win over Diaz, but what he fails to be seeing is that he just beat a short lightweight, not a huge punching light welterweight like Maidana.

Malignaggi says “Victor Ortiz was exposing Maidana for what he was lacking. If Victor Ortiz had dug deep that night [Malignaggi is referring to the night that Maidana stopped Ortiz in the 6th round in June 2009], he would have probably beat Maidana.”

I don’t think Malignaggi remembers the fight very well. At the time that the referee stopped the Ortiz-Maidana fight, Ortiz was badly cut and had been knocked down. Maidana badly hurt Ortiz with a couple of huge shots in the 5th round, and in the 6th, he was pummeling Ortiz at will. If Ortiz had “dug deep” like Malignaggi says, I have little doubts that Ortiz would have been flattened in the 6th. It’s a good thing that Ortiz didn’t want to continue fighting. He had nothing left at that point in the fight and was just taking needless punishment. It’s disappointing how badly off Malignaggi is about the Ortiz-Maidana fight. It was a massacre after the 5th round. Malignaggi thinks that Ortiz could win that fight by digging deep? Yeah, right.

“Ortiz’s punches were shorter, crisper, and tighter,” Malignaggi says. “He [Ortiz] was getting to Maidana when he needed to. He just didn’t have the wherewithal to get through the pressure that Maidana was bringing.”

You can say that again. Ortiz looked good in the first two rounds and dropped Maidana three times. However, Maidana also knocked Ortiz down and was the one landing the harder shots.