After months of back and forth bantering, put downs and even ex-girlfriends name calling between Paulie Malingnaggi and Adrien Broner the two men finally stepped into the ring at the Barclays Arena in Brooklyn, New York to settle the only score that mattered.
The WBC World Welterweight title.
However while all if not most the talk from the fight is about what was once again said and not thrown, the fight itself was entertaining. Malignaggi, showed his determination and stood his ground against the stronger and faster Broner to make the fight less one sided than most people thought it would be, myself included.
Paulie was the busier man in the fight but without any real threat in his hands, Malignaggi had a hard time creating distance between himself and Broner. He kept Broner at bay with throwing first and throwing often. However, when broner would land, his shots were harder and crisp. Palulie’s face was red from the 1st round on. It played out this way for most of the fight, Paulie would throw more but would eat hard flush shots that would negate any real momentum he had. In the end Paulie proved he still has gas left in the tank he just has no horse power to make a fighter pay.
And while in what is typically expected and common amongst boxers with the pre fight festivities with the vile words spewed toward one another, usually is replaced at the end of the contest with praise, mutual respect and adulation this is unless you happen to be Adrien Broner.
Broner would go on to win the fight with a split decision (115-113,113-115,117-111) however little mattered on what transpired the previous 48 minutes when Broner decided to boldly state “ I beat Paulie, I left with his belt and his girl” in which Paulie responded “don’t brag about taking my side piece.”
From there the whole thing just got ugly. Paulie would also go on to say that while the fight was not a “fix, it’s always the politically more connected fighter who get’s the close decision.”
While boxing and the cloud of suspicion of fixed fights, judges and refs in certain promoters pockets is nothing new, Saturday night from Brooklyn, New York, the only thing that was fixed was that Adrien Broner was allowed to bypass the entire 140lb weight class to face the light hitting Malignaggi in the first place.
Where he goes from here is interesting. While he did rephrase his comment on the “politically connected fighter” statement, he bit the hand the feeds him. Goldenboy Promotions. Are they willing to let bygones be bygones or will they make Paulie pay in some way? There was a nice little heated exchange between Paulie and Keith Thurman a few months back who is also managed by the one and only Al Haymon. Thurman needs more names on his record he has built and Malignaggi has the name and the Brooklyn fan base.
And Broner?
After the fight Broner stated he would let the fans pick his next opponent to fight. Immediately social media sites were calling for Lucas Matthysse.
While I get the sudden fan love with Matthysse, it is also hard to actually see Broner getting Matthysse next, not with the Garcia fight supposedly taking place this September. Add any and all Top Rank fighters most likely be off the table which means no Mike Alvarado.
So then who does that leave?
A quick list:
Devon Alexander
Amir Khan
Ruslan Provodnikov
Marcos Maidana
Joseito Lopez
Shane Mosley
Lamont Peterson
Zab Judah
Mauricio Herrera
It is not typical for Haymon to pair two of his fighters against one another so any of the fighters that are tied to Haymon are probably out as well so the next couple of months should be interesting. How much if any influence will fans actually have for Broner’s next opponent will be interesting. It will also be interesting to see if Broner will actually fight someone of substance as his list of opponents so far in his career are littered with a good amount of no names.
Broner may be ready to call himself the next great fighter but he is far from actually earning in the ring.