Malignaggi vs. Mosley possible for April 27th

By Boxing News - 01/14/2013 - Comments

malignaggi454By Dan Ambrose: A fight between WBA World welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (32-4, 7 KO’s) and soon to 42-year-old Shane Mosley (46-8-1, 39 KO’s) is being talked about for April 27th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. This has the makings of a cash out fight. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer wants the fight and he’s already made it clear to Maxboxing.com writer Steve Kim that this is the last chance he’ll give Mosley. If he doesn’t produce in this fight he says he won’t promote him any longer.

That obviously doesn’t matter because Mosley will still find fights even if Malignaggi beats him, which at this point is hard to imagine after looking at how badly Malignaggi struggled in his last fight against 23-year-old Pablo Cesar Cano last October in winning a controversial 12 round split decision.

Malignaggi was knocked down in the 11th round by the painfully slow Cano, and the fight showed that Malignaggi isn’t going to remain the World Boxing Association 147 pound champion for too much longer fighting like that. Golden Boy may have been hoping that one of the big names – Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao – might show interest in fighting Malignaggi, who many boxing fans see as a paper champion, but there’s been zero interest in either of those guys taking on Malignaggi.

Golden Boy perhaps should have had Malignaggi and WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight because Alvarez has already been fighting a lot of welterweights anyway despite holding down the 154 pound title. However, Malignaggi has to defend his WBA welterweight title and there’s no way that Canelo can get down to 147 anymore without draining himself badly.

The one thing that could be a roadblock in a potential Malignaggi-Mosley fight is Mosley’s lack of a top 15 ranking. Unless the WBA comes to the rescue by giving him a top 15 ranking soon, like the World Boxing Council did last year in May for his fight against Canelo, it might be hard to make the fight. The WBA will have to approve of Mosley as a worthy continue.

What’s really interesting about the WBC giving Mosley a top five ranking last year is that they did it despite the fact that Mosley hadn’t won a fight in three years since 2009. I don’t know why the WBC ranked Mosley so high without a recent victory, but they did it and the fight was a terrible mismatch with Alvarez pounding Mosley like a drum for 12 one-sided rounds.

Mosley now hasn’t won a fight in four years, and it’s going to be laughable if and when the WBA sanctions the fight. I’m just waiting to see if the WBA gives Mosley a top 15 ranking for the fight. That’ll be a laugh.



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