By Allan Fox: Unbeaten Adrien Broner (26-0, 22 KO’s) will step up two divisions this Saturday night to face WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (32-4, 7 KO’s) on Showtime at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Malignaggi will be making his second title defense of his World Boxing Association title that he captured last year with a 9th round TKO win over then champion Vyacheslav Senchenko in Donetsk, Ukraine.
Broner, 23, has been anointed by some to be the next Floyd Mayweather Jr., but he’s still not faced the kind of quality opposition necessary to tell you whether he can live up to that praise.
Right now, Broner just looks like a fighter that imitates Floyd Jr. both in and outside the ring, but without having faced the same kind’s opposition that Mayweather has fought during his career.
This fight won’t give Broner a huge boost in credibility should he win, because Malignaggi is considered to be one of the weak links among the four welterweight champions. It’s a definite start for Broner if he can pick up an impressive win in this fight, and show that he can well in this weight class.
Malignaggi has doubts that Broner will be the same fighter at 147 that he was in the 135 lb. weight class against marginal opposition.
Malignaggi sees this fight as being too big of a step up for Broner in terms of class and weight, because Broner taking two steps instead of just one with this fight.
Broner is very confident going into this fight, and he sees it being no different from his past fights at lightweight. He figures to walk Malignaggi down and hammer him with power shots until he drops, However, Malignaggi is very good at avoiding punches and Broner may have to really go after him if he wants to consistently land his big punches.
If all Malignaggi is doing is jabbing, then Broner is going to have to walk through these shots to get close enough to land something big because Malignaggi likely won’t invade Broner;s space to make it easy for him to connect with his big left hooks and right hands.
Malignaggi can win this fight is he can move around the ring in wide circles for 12 rounds. Broner may want to be like Mayweather, but he doesn’t have his ability to move around the ring. Broner needs an opponent to stand in front of him for him to get his shots off, and Malignaggi could prevent him from doing this by staying on the move and shooting out a continuous jab into the face of Broner.
Comments are closed.