As you might imagine from his previous comments, the confidence of Paulie Malignaggi has not waned at all as the days tick closer to his bare knuckle bout against Artem Lobov at BKFC 6 next Saturday, June 22 in Tampa, Florida. And true confidence begins with proper training, which Malignaggi feels he has done in the lead-up to his bout against Artem Lobov by putting in work with a sparring partner that he personally believes to be commensurate to Artem Lobov’s talent level:
“To prepare for Artem, I hit the punching bag a lot more because Artem is basically a punching bag with legs,” Malignaggi told MMA Junkie. “ I wanted to get used to that and get my fists accustomed to it. We’ve also done some other things to be prepared specifically for my bare-knuckle debut.”
Malignaggi plans on landing a continuous stream of shots to Lobov, but in what may be a rare compliment issued to his opponent, Malignaggi admits that Lobov will not go down easily. The flip side to that is by hanging around, Lobov will only put himself in store for more agony, Malignaggi believes:
“This is going to be a painful night for Artem,” Malignaggi said. “This is a world-class fighter against a punching bag with feet. He’s going to be very stubborn, but he’s going to get hit nonetheless. I think you’re going to see that I’m a different class of fighter. I’ve been a champion and I’ve been in the ring with many champions. He doesn’t have that experience. You’ll see what difference that makes on fight night. “
And that difference will result in Artem Lobov exiting the ring as a beaten and faceless man according to the supremely confident boxer.
“This fight ends with Lobov’s face falling off. I’m going to cut him up. I hope he lasts, because I want to beat him down round after round.”
Do you believe Paulie Malignaggi will have as dominant a performance as he believes he will have at BKFC 6 against Artem Lobov?
