It appears that unbeaten Adrien Broner will rise into the welterweight division to challenge WBA beltholder Paulie Malignaggi at Barclays Center on June 22.
Bob Arum said Julio Cesar Chavez could fight Brian Vera next, and eventually, Andre Ward.
Schaefer: Broner-Malignaggi 'basically done'
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BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer declared that a deal to match undefeated WBC beltholder Adrien "The Problem" Broner and WBA welterweight titleholder Paulie Malignaggi on June 22 at Barclays Center is "basically done" in an e-mail to RingTV.com. Schaefer's assertion came while sitting ringside on Saturday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn prior to the HBO-televised matchup between 48-year-old former RING light heavyweight and middleweight champ Bernard Hopkins and IBF 175-pound titleholder Tavoris Cloud. A winner of five straight welterweight fights, two of them by knockout, Malignaggi (32-4, 7 KOs) informed RingTV.com recently that he had been formally contacted by Golden Boy about a potential fight with Broner (26-0, 22 KOs), who is 23. Malignaggi also spoke to RINGTV.com from ringside at Barclays Center. "I've been told that the purse bid situation has been taken care of, so they're trying to move ahead with the Broner fight now," said Malignaggi, 32, of Broner, who scored his sixth straight stoppage victory in the fifth-round last month against ex-beltholder Gavin Rees on HBO. "I know that Adrien wants it, and I know that I want it. So it's something that's worth doing, especially right here. That would be awesome." A native of Brooklyn, Malignaggi has not lost since falling by 11th-round knockout as a junior welterweight against Amir Khan in a failed bid to earn the WBA's 140-pound belt in May of 2010. Malignaggi is coming off October's split-decision victory over Pablo Cesar Cano at Barclays Center. Photo by Naoki Fukuda Lem Satterfield can be reached at lemuel.satterfield@gmail.com |