By William Mackay: WBA light welterweight champion (22-1, 16 KO’s) is expecting to beat the stuffing out of Paulie Malignaggi (27-3, 5 KO’s) on May 15th. In fact, Khan is thinking that he’ll beat Malignaggi so badly that he’ll end up retiring from boxing afterwards. In an article at the Dailystar, Khan says “This will probably be Paulie’s last fight because after this he will not want to out the gloves on again…I feel so strong and sharp. It is such a shame I am fighting Paulie for my debut fight because I want to out a great fight on for my American fans. But I honestly don’t think he will be the same fighter this fight.”
Khan seems to think that he’ll be giving Malignaggi, a veteran fighter, the worse beating of his career. That remains to be seen, as Malignaggi has been in with some good fighters in his career that had big power like Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto. Khan would seem to be a step down the ladder from those two fighters in terms of punching power. Khan may be able to out-quick Malignaggi and either win by a 12 round decision or perhaps a stoppage due to cuts, especially if there’s a clash of heads like in his fight with Marco Antonio Barrera.
But I doubt that Khan will be punching hard enough to cause Malignaggi easy serious problems. Khan fights too much on the move and slaps too much with his combinations to do a lot of damage against a good professional like Malignaggi. At the same time, Malignaggi will be fighting on his back foot much of the time and won’t be giving Khan a stationary target to land his shots against. Khan does well when he’s facing a plodder, someone that he can box circles around and jump in for his quick flurries.
Khan looked great against the slow plodder Dmitri Salita recently. That was probably the ideal opponent for Khan. But a fighter that can punch or one that can move like Malignaggi is a whole different matter. Khan will probably beat Malignaggi but I doubt he’s going to look impressive in doing so. He’s the wrong kind of fighter to try and look good against, which is why it’s a mistake that Khan fought him in the first place. Khan should have stood on his hind legs and told Golden Boy Promotions he wanted Marcos Maidana as his first opponent in the United States rather than Malignaggi.
Maidana is arguably more popular than Malignaggi anyway, and that’s the opponent Khan should have chosen. Instead, we have Khan facing a light puncher who specializes in his defensive ability and making his opponents look bad. I expect Malignaggi look clumsy and uncoordinated on May 15th. Khan will win a decision but end up winning few new fans. Choosing Malignaggi to fight is the worst possible opponent if you want to look good.
If Khan had one punch power, then it wouldn’t be a problem because he would get to Malignaggi eventually and knock him out. But Khan is more of a slapper than a puncher and can’t really generate any power unless he loads up and is flat footed. Malignaggi can’t be hit by those kinds of punches. You have to be able to punch hard on the move to hit him and Khan has little power to speak of when he’s moving around the ring.
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