#2 WBA Marcos Maidana is picking 23-year-old Adrien Broner (26-0, 22 KO’s) to defeat WBA World welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (32-4, 7 KO’s) in their fight on June 22nd at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Maidana told esnewsreporting.com that Broner will win because he’s “too strong” for Malignaggi. Maidana then said he wants to fight Broner after he beats Malignaggi and he sees himself beating him, saying “I’m stronger. Put a lot of pressure on him.”
There’s little question that Broner will very likely beat Malignaggi in their fight on June 22nd because Broner has everything going for him in terms of speed, power, defense and youth. Malignaggi has more experience but in this case it might be enough for him to win the fight. The 32-year-old Malignaggi didn’t look all that good in winning his last fight against fringe contender Pablo Cesar Cano last October in Malignaggi’s 12 round split decision win.
Maidana vs. Broner would be interesting if the fight comes off. It’s doubtful that Broner will stay at 147 if he beats Malignaggi because his promoters Oscar De La Hoya and Richard Schaefer are already talking about Broner moving down to 140 to face guys like Lamont Peterson, Lucas Matthysse, Danny Garcia, Zab Judah and Amir Khan.
Golden Boy promotes most of those guys, so putting the fights together would be real easy. It’ll be interesting to see what Broner what’s to do when and if he beats Malignaggi for the WBA 147 lb. title. Who knows? Broner may want to stay at 147 and defend his title against all comers.
Certainly, the money potential is bigger at 147 than it would be if Broner moved down to 140 and faced all those guys that Golden Boy wants him to. If Broner were to stay at 147, he could have fights against Maidana, Keith Thurman, Robert Guerrero, Devon Alexander and Kell Brook. Broner won’t fight his friend Floyd Mayweather Jr, and he won’t be able to fight Top Rank guys like Manny Pacquiao, Tim Bradley and Ruslan Provodnikov.