By Scott Gilfoid: WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner (26-0, 22 KO’s) challenged WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (32-4, 7 KO’s) for a fight on June 22nd earlier today on twitter.
Broner said to Malignaggi, “The people want to see us out on a show. Let’s get this money and stun in Bentleys this Summer.”
Broner added “Nobody will beat me.”
It really didn’t require for Broner to challenge Malignaggi to make this fight happen because the driving force is Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer, who wants the fight to happen on June 22nd at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York because of the huge interest the fight would generate.
The only thing that will get in the way of the Broner-Malignaggi fight from taking place is if WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns expresses interest in facing Broner a week earlier on June 15th.
Schaefer likes that fight because he can match Broner up with Burns, and then come back later for the Malignaggi fight. Unfortunately, Burns won’t likely agree to that fight with Broner for whatever reason, so it’s going to be Broner vs. Malignaggi on June 22nd on HBO.
Broner is slowly but surely building himself up to be a pay-per-view fighter. He’s not there yet, but he’s definitely going to make it to that status in a year or two as long as HBO can start matching him against quality opposition. Malignaggi isn’t a fight that’s’ going to do much for Broner, but if Golden Boy is willing to match him against the best fighters at light welterweight and welterweight, then he’ll get to that status.
Malignaggi doesn’t have the star appeal to do much for Broner even if he blasts Malignaggi out in a few rounds. Other than Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, there isn’t anyone popular enough to turn Broner into a PPV start at welterweight, and he’s not going to get a fight against either of those guys.
One way that Broner can speed up the process is if he takes a huge risk and faces WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in the near future, provided that Canelo doesn’t get beaten by Austin Trout in their fight on April 20th.
Golden Boy probably won’t make that fight, though, so it’s going to take Broner a while before he becomes a PPV attraction because there’s simply no one popular enough for him to fight right now that will give him a bump up in popularity.
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