Paulie Likes Mayweather To Beat Canelo, But…

Paul Malignaggi showed on June 22 that he is not yet at a place where he will be relegated, kicked to the curb of the analyst chair, as opposed to center ring. He lost a split decision to Adrien Broner, but threw more than the “winner” and many folks had him winning the bout, even if two of three judges didn’t. The fighter is now in wait-and-see mode, and is concentrating on analyst duties for Showtime. I asked him to assess the Sept. 14 showdown between Floyd Mayweather and Canelo Alvarez.

“You gotta favor Floyd but Canelo is coming, he’s hungry and he is the bigger man. I’m curious to see what tactics he uses to fight the smaller man. Floyd is the more talented man but he’s the smaller man. I’m curious to see if Canelo can take advantage of that size advantage. His punching power is such that if he can land enough, and get Floyd’s respect and intimidate him, it could make things interesting. But again, it’s hard to go against Mayweather.”

Does Canelo even do better than Robert Guerrero did, I wondered, because to me, that’s not a given. “It’s hard to say, we don’t know about Canelo’s ability to adjust yet because we haven’t seen him in a situation where he’s had to adjust,” said Malignaggi (in photo, on right, talking to writer, in Evi Avrahami pic). “We hope, because of Canelo’s reputation, he’s better than Guerrero, but we haven’t seen a situation where Canelo has been in super tough. The Trout fight he had that a little bit, it was close, but it was always him up a couple points, all the way. I’m curious to see how Canelo would react if he is behind.”

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