By Luis Sandoval
Adrien Broner and Paulie Malignaggi put on quite a show at their Las Vegas kickoff press conference this past Saturday for their upcoming Welterweight championship fight taking place June 22nd at the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn, NY. The war of words was definitely on as both combatants took turns taking personal swipes and promising to inflict the most damage.
Malignaggi who isn’t regarded as a hard puncher promised to put a beating on Broner and suggested he’d ever make him quit on his stool on fight night. BoxingScene spoke to Broner who dismissed Malignaggi’s threat and promised he’d be the one administering the pain.
“When has he ever stood toe to toe with anybody? And you think he's going to stand toe to toe with Adrien "The Problem" Broner?? Yeah right. Listen, once he gets hit he's going to go to what he knows: Bicycle. Huffy. BMX games. He’s not hard to hit. Everybody knows that. He’s not hard to hit,” said Broner.
Part of what has made this fight interesting is the fact that Broner is moving up two weight classes and will perceivably be the smaller fighter. Broner believes there will be no size difference at all and already feels he’s bigger than Malignaggi when they stood face to face at the press conference.
“What it is with him is he feels like I'm a 130 pounder. [A]135 pounder. But clearly you can see when we was shoulder to shoulder he's little. He's not on my level. He really feels that I'm too small for the weight division because my last fight was at 135 pounds. From the outside looking in, everybody feels like that. 'How is he just going to jump up though those weight classes?' but what they don't know is fighters like me, I lose weight to make weight. I just have the ability to lose the weight easy and be comfortable with smaller weights. But I can make 140 easy. I can fight at 147 easy. You know 154 with the fight opponent” said the Cincinnati native.
Broner is coming into this fight extremely confident and aside from being the youngest champion in the sport today at only 23, he is also looking forward to the opportunity to winning his third major world title. Adrien says he has already begun training and is already in tip top shape.
You can follow Luis Sandoval on Twitter @Truewest007. You can also tune in to BoxingScene Radio, Boxingscene’s official audio show every Tuesday from 6-8PM PST with hosts Ernest Gabion, Luis Sandoval, and Ryan Burton.