This weekend, boxing hits Brooklyn as the new Barclays Center will be opened with a quartet of championship fights on display. The IBF Welterweight Champion, “The Knock-Out King” Randall Bailey will defend his belt against Devon Alexander “The Great”. The WBO Middleweight Champion, Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam will square off against “Kid Chocolate” Peter Quillin. The WBA World Welterweight Champion and Brooklyn’s own, Paulie “The Magic Man” Malignaggi faces off against “El Demoledor Pablo Cesar Cano. And lastly, in the Main Event, Danny Garcia will fight his 1st fight since upsetting Amir Khan as he defends his WBC Light Welterweight and WBA Super World Light Welterweight titles in a rematch from 7 months ago against “El Terrible” Erik Morales.
Randall Bailey (43-7 with 37 KOs) comes into this fight fresh off beating Mike Jones in Vegas 4 months ago to win his 1st ever world title. He will be doing what he does every fight, not throwing too much, cocking his right hand, and waiting to land it. If he lands it, everyone goes down, if he doesn’t, it may be a short title rein. Devon Alexander (23-1 with 13 KOs) comes in fighting only his 2nd fight in the last 16 months. This will be his 2nd fight in the 147 lb division and he will be hoping that his speed can counter off the huge power discrepancy between him and Bailey. I think Alexander is the better technical boxer and the only way Bailey wins is if he catches him with his powerful right. I think Alexander avoids getting knocked silly. Alexander wins by unanimous decision.
Peter Quillin (27-0 with 20 KOs) finally gets the title shot that he wanted. His last fight was against Winky Wright and even though it went the distance because no one stops Winky, he still put him down on the canvas and it was still a dominant win where he won 8 of the 10 rounds. Hassam N’Dam N’Jikam (27-0 with 17 KOs) is a good solid French fighter that you may not know about. He has some pop and this will be his 1st fight in the US. With 2 undefeated fighters, it’s always hard to choose between the 2 because you haven’t actually seen anyone exploit their weakness. Kid Chocolate is the slightly stronger guy and will be on home turf as he now resides in Brooklyn. He will try to put on a show and I always worry about guys getting too excited with their 1st fight on US soil. Quillin wins by TKO in the 8th.
Speaking of fighting on home turf, everything about Paulie Malignaggi (31-4 with 7 KOs) says Brooklyn. He was born there, he was raised there, he has the strong Brooklyn accent and he reps Brooklyn in any way he can. He comes into this fight after going overseas to win the WBA World Welterweight belt against the undefeated Vyacheslav Senchenko in the Ukraine, which is Senchenko’s home country. His opponent Pablo Cesar Cano (25-1-1 with 19 KOs) is the unknown in this fight. He does have pop and he is only 23, so he is getting better, but it’s hard to pick him in this. I actually like the potential of this kid and if this fight was 2 years from now, who knows. I will even go as far as to say that I will not be surprised if he catches Paulie a couple times and hurts him, but the huge experience advantage will be too much to overcome. Malignaggi wins by unanimous decision.
Finally, in the main event, Danny Garcia (24-0 with 15 KOs) will face Erik Morales (56-8 with 36 KOs) in a rematch from a fight that wasn’t really that close in March of this year. On almost every card Garcia had won 9, if not 10 of that 12 round fight. Not only that, but Morales also came in 2 lbs overweight. A lot of people thought Morales should have stayed retired the 1st time and even more thought he should have called it a career when he fought Garcia in March. Sometimes it’s good to see a great fighter continue to be a warrior, but at some point, it gets sad, and you don’t want that fighter to get hurt. Hopefully Morales will make it out this fight okay and he can then retire with his body and mind intact. With that said Garcia stops him and wins by TKO in the 10th round.
This will be a great event for the city of Brooklyn and a great day for boxing fans. There are not too many events where you can see 4 World titles on the line in the same night in the same venue and Showtime sure paid for it; with over 3.4 million being dished it to the main card and 4 million in total including the ShoExtreme bouts.
This year will be a year of first’s for the Barclays Center and this will be just another 1 of those monumental events that you will be able to go back and remember where you were when the Barclays Center hosted 4 Championship boxing bouts. This is definitely a can’t miss moment, enjoy the fights.
