Malignaggi suffers severe cut, fight with O’Connor is off for May 29th

By Boxing News - 05/16/2015 - Comments

malignaggi133By Allan Fox: In a big blow to the May 29th undercard for the Amir Khan vs. Chris Algieri fight, former two division world champion Paulie Malignaggi (33-6, 7 KOs) suffered a severe cut while training for his tune-up fight against 2nd tier fighter Danny O’Connor (25-2, 9 KOs) on Spike TV on Premier Boxing Champions at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, and the fight had to be called off.

Instead of the Malignaggi-O’Connor fight, boxing fans will have to be content with seeing unbeaten super featherweight Javier Fortuna (27-0-1, 20 KOs) take on Bryan Vasquez (34-1, 18 KOs) for the vacant WBA World super featherweight title.

The Fortuna-Vazquez fight was supposed to be taking place on May 23rd on the Andre Dirrell vs. James DeGale card in Boston on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC, but instead it’s being moved back six days to take place on the Khan-Algieri card at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Malignaggi’s cut took place during a workout on Thursday, and it was immediately clear that he wouldn’t be able to take the fight. It’s unknown if the cut is in the same place as the one that Malignaggi suffered in his last fight against Shawn Porter a year ago in April.

“He got cut in a bad place above his eye and needed stitches,” promoter Lou DiBella said via ESPN.com. “He got a number of stitches, and he could not fight. This is not a bad alternative under the circumstances. Fortuna and Vasquez should be a very competitive fight.”

If the injury to Malignaggi is from the same area that he was cut in his fight against Porter then it’s not surprising because that was a bad cut. Malignaggi hasn’t fought since then, and this would have been the first time that his skin had been tested since that fight.

The Fortuna-Vazquez fight is a far more interesting fight than the Malignaggi-O’Connor fight in my view, because it deals with two top level fighters vying for the WBA super featherweight title. The Malignaggi-O’Connor fight was just a simple bout between two 2nd tier welterweights with no real direction to go in.

Even the winner of that fight wouldn’t be a major player in the 147 pound division, because there are a lot better fighters in that weight class than either of them.

The Dirrell-DeGale card is now without an interesting undercard fight now that the Fortuna-Vazquez fight has been moved off the card. The fight that will likely be elevated to the television part of the card is a match-up between light heavyweight Edwin Rodriguez and Craig Baker. That fight doesn’t appear to be a competitive match-up.



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