By Edward Chaykovsky
Former two division world champion Paulie Malignaggi believes that Manny Pacquiao is exaggerating the severity of his right shoulder injury. Pacquiao says he injured the shoulder about a month before the twelve round decision loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr.
He claims he further injured the shoulder during the fourth round, which affected his performance. He had shoulder surgery last Wednesday and probably won't fight again until the end of the year. Mayweather is planning to fight again on September 12th, which he claims will be his final career fight.
In the opinion of Malignaggi, the injury was not as severe as Pacquiao is making it out to be.
“Every pro athlete that has been a pro athlete for a certain amount of time has some wear and tear on his shoulder,” Malignaggi said to the NY Post. “I guarantee if you MRI my right shoulder I’ll have a little bit of wear and tear because I feel it when I lay down at night. It’s not going to make or break me. It’s just small things that happen during the course of an athletic career. Clearly, Pacquiao’s wasn’t severe. You can tell by the way he was fighting. If it was that severe, that would have been the first thing to come out of his mouth. Instead he thought he won the fight.”
