By Ben Shipman: Former two division world champion Paulie Malignaggi (35-7, 7 KOs) will be fighting this Saturday night against 35-year-old Gabriel Bracero (24-2, 5 KOs) in a 10 round fight on Showtime Championship Boxing from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Malignaggi, 35, describes the fight as a crossroads type of fight. He’s not talking about retiring if he loses the contest, but it’s obviously an option if things go wrong for him inside the ring.
Malignaggi wants to beat Bracero, look good, and then possibly try and move down to the lightweight division. Malignaggi feels that he has a chance of competing more at the world stage in the 135 pound division than he currently can at 147.
It’s obviously going to be a big ask for Malignaggi to melt down to lightweight, because he’s been fighting at welterweight for the last six years since 2010. Before that, Malignaggi fought at light welterweight [140] from 2002 to 2010. Malignaggi did start his career out at lightweight in 2001, but he only stayed in that weight class for one year before moving to light welterweight in 2002.
“I want to put in the kind of performance where people say Paulie Malignaggi has something left,” said Malignaggi to fighhub.com. “I’m considering maybe moving to lightweight. If I can do it, I can do it. If I can’t, I can’t. At lightweight, I think I can compete more at the global stage than I can at welterweight. I don’t know if I can make it or go through that punishment of the severe dehydration. There’s the European title. I want to win the title once. I’m the mandatory for them,” said Malignaggi.
Bracero has better power than his record would have you believe. His right hand power is good, and he’s excellent at timing his opponents so that he can land his straight right hand. Bracero knocked out his last opponent Danny O’Connor in the 1st round last October. The right hand that Bracero landed in that fight for the KO would have done a job on most of the welterweights in the division. Bracero landed it perfectly with a lot of power. He didn’t look like a 35-year-old fighter in that fight. He looked like someone in his late 20s. Malignaggi could have a real fight on his hands on Saturday.
“This is a great crossroads fight. I trained for the competitor that I know he is and I’m ready to put on a show,” said Malignaggi.
Malignaggi has won his last two fights against Laszlo Fazekas and Antonio Moscatiello. Neither of those guys were world class fighters, however. They were more European level fighters. Malignaggi was stopped twice in a row by Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter in disappointing defeats in 2014 and 2015. Those guys had too much power and size against Malignaggi. He was just out of his class power-wise.
If Malignaggi can melt down to lightweight and not be negatively affected by the loss of weight, then he would have a decent change against guys like Anthony Crolla and Dejan Zlaticanin. Terry Flanagan would likely be too big for Malignaggi, because that guy rehydrates to the welterweight division and looks huge in the ring.