By Sean McDaniel: WBA World welterweight champion Vyasheslav Senchenko (32-0, 21 KO’s) pretty much towered over former IBF light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (30-4, 6 KO’s) during Saturday’s weigh-in for their fight on Sunday night in Ukraine. Malignaggi weighed in at 145.8lbs, and Senchenko came in a little heavier at 146.6lbs.

But may be cause for concern for the 31-year-old Malignaggi is his size disadvantage in this fight. Senchenko, 5’10”, looked not only a lot taller than Malignaggi, but he looked a lot bigger as well. I mean, he looked like a fighter that was fighting at a division above Malignaggi, which would make sense because Malignaggi is really just a pumped up 140 pounder who just moved up in weight three fights ago.

Malignaggi has found the 147 pound division to his liking, but he still hasn’t fought anyone even remotely what you would consider good. This will be Malignaggi’s step up fight, and it’s going to be a good test to see if he can overcome his lack of size because it’s going to be tough just looking at the size differences between the two of them.

Malignaggi won’t have the reach, the power or the size advantage in this fight and will depend solely on his speed and elusiveness to try and win the fight. It’s going to be tough, because Senchenko doesn’t take a lot of chances and he won’t be trying to take Malignaggi’s head off like most of his opponents try to do.

What this means is that Malignaggi won’t get many opportunities to counter what Senchenko is doing because he’ll be getting hit over and over again with jabs rather than power shots. If Malignaggi is going to do anything he’ll have to try and look to counter Senchenko’s jabs, which won’t be easy because the big Ukrainian has excellent defensive skills, long arms and a tendency to back away when his opponents charge him the way that Malignaggi will likely be doing tomorrow night.