Malignaggi Details His Thoughts on The Golovkin vs. Brook Deal

By Reynaldo 'El Papi Chulo' Sanchez

Former two-division world champion Paul Malignaggi is training every day at the 5th St. Gym in Miami, Florida, as he prepares for his upcoming fight against Gabriel Bracero on July 30th at the Barclays Center in New York. The main event of that card will feature WBA world champion Leo Santa Cruz defending his belt against Carl Frampton.

Malignaggi spoke to Ringsidefightingnews about the development of his training camp and other subjects. Also working as an expert analyst for Showtime, Malignaggi gave his take on the upcoming fight between Genaddy Golovkin against Kell Brook.

Brook (36-0, 25KOs), a world champion at welterweight, is moving up by thirteen pounds to challenge Golovkin for the IBO/IBF/WBA/WBC middleweight world titles.

"Kell Brook is a great fighter, is one of the best in his weight division and possibly he's also a good super welterweight. But in my opinion, Golovkin is the best middleweight in the world. And I want to see him fight the best middleweights in the world. I understand that the big names at middleweight don't want to fight with Golovkin," Malignaggi said.

"But Gennady has other options and opponents who want to deal with him. Tureano Johnson is one of them and then there is Sebastian Heiland who defeated Mathew Macklin and is a powerful fighter from Argentina who always come to have great fights. Those two are good fights."

However, I understand why Kell Brook was picked and not the others. Kell Brook is a big name in welterweight and no one wants to fight him. Brook also needed a big fight because he couldn't opponents at his weight. Golovkin and Brook have the same problem at their respective weights."

"Kell Brook is a bigger name than Tureano Johnson and a bigger name than Sebastian Heiland, I do not know if Brook is qualified to fight Golovkin, but Kell is more well known than Johnson and Heiland. To sell a boxing match, they need the name recognition of fighters and for that reason I understand why they are doing this fight."

"This is a dangerous fight for Brook, not only for his career but also for his health. Golovkin is not only the best middleweight, but he's a powerful puncher in this weight class. It's a tough fight; Brook is a great fighter at welterweight. People think about the old days and mention fights like Napoles-Monzon, but they forget that at those times fighters had to weigh-in on the day of the fight. Today it's different, and when you enter the ring you could be fighting against a man who was rehydrated by over two or three weight divisions. It's harder to do that in this era that it was in the old days."