Malignaggi won't allow Cano to 'climb the ladder'

Newly-crowned WBA welterweight titleholder and Brooklyn native Paulie Malignaggi calls Pablo Cesar Cano "a hungry, young guy" who is "looking to make a name for himself."

But Malignaggi (31-4, 7 knockouts) says that his "experience is going to be too much" for Cano (25-1-1, 19 KOs) when they meet on the Oct. 20 undercard of a Showtime-televised rematch between RING, WBA and WBC junior welterweight champ Danny Garcia (24-0, 15 KOs), of Philadelphia, and four-division titlewinner Erik Morales (52-8, 36 KOs), of Mexico City.

"He's going to be 23 years old, and he believes that he's ready to climb the ladder and he's hungry to make a name for himself," said Malignaggi, 31, of Cano, a Mexico City resident who turns 23 16 days before their fight, which will mark the grand opening weekend of The Barclays Center in Brooklyn. "So once you feel like that, and you get into a world title fight, you should be ready to go for the gusto. I'm going to train and be at my best."

Being billed "Brooklyn Pride," the show will boast several fighters from the East Coast as Garcia headlines with a return bout against Morales, whom he dropped in the 11th round of a unanimous decision that dethroned Morales as WBC beltholder in March.

Also being considered for the card, according to Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer, are middleweight contenders Peter Quillin (27-0, 20 KOs) and Danny Jacobs (22-1, 19 KOs), of Brooklyn, another Brooklyn resident in welterweight Dmitriy Salita (34-1-1, 18 KOs), and Bronx-born junior welterweight Eddie Gomez (9-0, 6 KOs), of Puerto Rico.

Malignaggi dethroned the physically bigger, taller, harder-punching and previously unbeaten Vyacheslav Senchenko (32-1, 21 KOs) in front of Senchenko's hometown fans at Donbass Arena in Donetsk, Ukraine, scoring a ninth-round technical knockout in April.

A former IBF junior welterweight beltholder in just his fourth welterweight bout, Malignaggi has not lost since falling by 11th-round knockout to Amir Khan (26-3, 18 KOs) as a junior welterweight in May of 2010.

Cano has won three straight fights -- two of them by knockout -- since, himself, being stopped by Morales in the 10th-round of his junior welterweight debut in September. On July 21, Cano earned the WBA's interim 140-pound belt with a seventh-round majority decision over previously unbeaten Johan Perez (15-1-1, 12 KOs).

Planted between Barbara Streisand concerts, which are scheduled for Friday and Sunday, "Brooklyn Pride" stands to be aided by the combined promotional efforts of "Showtime, Showtime Extreme and, potentially, the CBS Sports network," according to Schaefer.

Lem Satterfield can be reached at lemuel.satterfield@gmail.com