olden Boy's Richard Schaefer announced tonight at the Hopkins-Cloud post-fight press conference that a fight between WBA welterweight titlist Paulie Malignaggi and current WBC lightweight titlist Adrien Broner is done for June 22. The fight will be held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, most likely airing on HBO.
Broner (26-0, 22 KO) is coming off of a pair of thrashings at 135 pounds against Antonio DeMarco and Gavin Rees, while Malignaggi (32-4, 7 KO) hasn't fought since October, when he won a disputed decision against Pablo Cesar Cano on the first Barclays boxing card.
The matchup has drawn a lot of criticism, particularly pointed at Golden Boy, Al Haymon, and Broner for not fighting either Ricky Burns or Miguel Vazquez at lightweight, and for skipping over the 140-pound division, where Golden Boy has Danny Garcia, Lucas Matthysse, and Lamont Peterson, all top-notch fighters.
Instead, Broner will head up to welterweight, where he's facing a guy who's currently sort of a problem for Golden Boy, in that he's a bit hard to control, so to speak. They didn't have much for Paulie that Paulie wanted, but this fight is going to be good money and exposure. Right up his alley.
