Malignaggi-Cano, N’Jikam-Quillin, Alexander-Bailey on October 20th

By Boxing News - 09/26/2012 - Comments

By Sean McDaniel: WBA World welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (41-4, 7 KO’s) must be feeling a little of pressure as he goes into his fight next month against the young 22-year-old Pablo Cesar Cano (25-1-1, 19 KO’s) at the Barclays Center, in Brooklyn, New York. It’s a fight where Golden Boy Promotions has put the 31-year-old Malignaggi in a good position for success by selecting a light welterweight contender for him to fight instead of one of the dangerous welterweight contenders that are looking to fight Malignaggi to get a chance to take his title.

Cano doesn’t have the same kind of power that top welterweights like Kell Brook and Thomas Dulorme had, and that’s important for Malignaggi because he’s been stopped in the past by hard punchers like Ricky Hatton and Amir Khan.

Malignaggi needs to win this fight because he could be defending his title in early 2013 against Ricky Hatton in a rematch. It was 2008 when Hatton stopped Malignaggi in the 11th round. If Malignaggi can get past Cano, he could find himself getting a really big payday against Hatton that would set him up for life. It’s an ideal situation, and a very likely scenario because Hatton wants to fight for a title at welterweight and Malignaggi is by far the weakest link among the four welterweight champions. This fight is more about keeping Malignaggi the WBA champion a little while longer, hence he’s being matched against a light welterweight instead of a welterweight. It’s interesting to note that since the fight has been made the WBA have given Cano #11 ranking, but let’s be real about this. Cano is no welterweight and just because the World Boxing Association has given him a ranking off a sudden at 147 it doesn’t make him a legit welterweight.

The fight card has some interesting bouts besides just the Malignaggi-Cano fight. WBO middleweight champion Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam (27-0, 17 KO’s) will be defending his title for the first time against unbeaten contender Peter Quillin (27-0, 20 KO’s) in a fight that’s difficult to pick a winner. N’Jikam has the better overall boxing skills compared to the 29-year-old Quillin but he doesn’t have the same kind of power that he possesses and it’s questionable whether N’Jikam will be able to handle Quillin’s formidable power for 12 rounds without going down for the count.

IBF welterweight champion Randall Bailey (43-7, 37 KO’s) will be making his first defense of his title against Devon Alexander (23-1, 13 KO’s) in another fight that could be very competitive. Bailey, 38, is starting to get up there in age to where his workrate is now way down from where it used to be. However, his power is still awesome to behold and clearly the best in the entire welterweight division. Bailey conserves his strength a lot better than he used to and that makes him dangerous, but it also puts him in position to where he could lose by a decision simply by being outworked by Alexander. That was what was happening to Bailey in his last fight against Mike Jones until Bailey suddenly dropped Jones in the 10th round despite being way behind in the fight. Bailey then finished Jones off in the 11th with a perfect right hand uppercut.



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