By Dan Ambrose: WBA World welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (31-4, 7 KO’s) isn’t even bothering to fight someone from his own weight class in his first defense of his title on October 20th against Pablo Cesar Cano (25-1-1, 19 KO’s) at the Barclays Center, in Brooklyn, New York. Cano, 22, is a light welterweight, not a welterweight and that’s sadly becoming a trend for champions how to defend their titles against guys from lower weight classes.

It wouldn’t be a problem if it were a non-title fight because then there wouldn’t be 15 welterweight contenders that were passed over for the fight so that Malingaggi could fight a guy from a division below him. For a fighter that’s worked hard in the welterweight division hoping to get a title shot, it must be terribly disappointing to see Malignaggi handpick an opponent from the 140 pound division instead of someone from his own division. This is one of the problems with boxing nowadays and it makes it really tough on the contenders that work their way up hoping for a title shot and then see themselves get bypassed so that the champion could fight a guy from a lighter division. Hopefully, some day a boxing commission will correct things like this so that it doesn’t happen. A contender can wait for ages for a title fight if a champion is allowed to fight guys from different divisions than the one he’s fighting in.

Malignaggi said to RingTV “Experience is going to be too much [for Cano]. He’s going to be 23-years-old, and he believes that he’s ready to climb the ladder and he’s hungry to make a name for himself.”

It’s not just the experience issue. Cano was already exposed by Erik Morales last year in a 10th round stoppage loss. Why is Cano getting another crack at a title, especially when it’s a welterweight title? Even in his own weight division, Cano would be overmatched against many of the top 15 in the division. I rate him as a bottom 30 contender overall.If you’re going to get a champion like Malignaggi fighting light welterweights, he should at least fight someone that is a top five contender instead of a fringe contender. That’s just wrong. It just makes Malignaggi look like he’s milking his title and the World Boxing Association isn’t stopping him from doing it.

Malignaggi recently defeated champion Vyacheslav Senchenko by a 9th round stoppage last April to capture the WBA title. It was a good win but then again Senchenko had never fought anyone halfway decent before, so we never got a chance to see whether he was merely a paper champion or the real deal. The fact that Malignaggi beat him kind of tells you all you need to know.

The Cano-Malignaggi fight will make Malignaggi look a lot better than he actually is. He’ll win this fight but it won’t mean much because as soon as he’s forced to fight contenders Thomas Dulorme or Devon Alexander, he’s going to lose badly.