By William Mackay: If WBA World welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (32-4, 7 KO’s) wants a shot at a rematch against 34-year-old Ricky Hatton next year than Malignaggi will have to defend his title against WBA interim welterweight champion Diego Chaves (22-0, 18 KO’s) by January 27th, 2013, according to fightnews.com.

That’s what the World Boxing Association has ordered now. If Malignaggi thought his fight with #10 WBA Pablo Cesar Cano was tough then just wait until he gets int the ring with the harder hitting, more accurate 26-year-old Chaves. Malignaggi won’t be able to beat this guy by throwing a pesky jab for 12 rounds. That’s not going to happen. Malignaggi will have to either slug or run, and it’s doubtful he’ll win fighting like that.

This obviously messes up Malignaggi’s plans to fight Hatton straightaway after Hatton beats former WBA welterweight champion Vyacheslav Senchenko next month on November 24th, if Hatton wins that fight. Hatton wants to fight for a world title against possibly Malignaggi and then immediately retire. But it’s a whole different story if Malignaggi has to fight the hard hitting Chaves first because this Argentinian is a big puncher along the same lines as Lucas Mattysse. He’s not as powerful as Marcos Maidana, but I rate Chaves’ power at least as good as Matthysse and that’s very good.

It’s unclear if Golden Boy Promotions, the promoter for Malignaggi, can wrangle a deal where Malignaggi can get an exception to bypass the fight with Chaves by giving him a step aside fee or just flat out getting the WBA to let Malignaggi take the fight with Hatton first without giving Chaves anything. But if Malignaggi has to fight Chaves first before the Hatton fight then there’s a high possibility Maligaggi won’t the champion for very much longer. Chaves will be a huge problems for Malignaggi, and he’s going to be able to beat him by boxing him for 12 rounds. That’s not going to work.

Hatton will have problems against Chaves as well because this is the wrong kind of fighter for Hatton to be taking head shots against especially after the way Hatton was knocked out by Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Chaves is an excellent inside fighter, so Hatton won’t be able to wrestle on the inside like he did with guys like Kostya Tszyu.