Whenever the top stars in the UFC fight, we seem to hear a lot of predictions from outside the mixed martial arts bubble. Ahead of UFC 158 and Georges St. Pierre’s title defense against Nick Diaz, WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi weighed in with his thoughts in an interview with Fight Hub.
While picking GSP, Malignaggi had a lot of good things to say about Nick’s stand-up skills:
It’s hard to pick against GSP. But Diaz has got some great stand up fighting. There’s a lot of MMA fighters, and I’m a boxer so I’m going to look at it from that perspective, they have decent hand skills but they don’t parry. Obviously you can’t stand like a boxer in MMA because you have to watch the takedown, the hand skills of Diaz, he parrys too. A lot of times you don’t see MMA guys parry. They just *puts up shell* but he’ll look like a boxer. You know…it takes some talent to be able to parry. Anybody can keep their hands up and block. To time the other guy’s shots and parry, that’s what I like about Nick Diaz. Obviously GSP has a lot more than hand strikes to worry about. I figure GSP, but I enjoy watching Nick Diaz.
Paulie said that he has never had a chance to train with St. Pierre, but they have “gone to the club” together several times. Adding that GSP likes to dance with “thick girls” all night long.
Malignaggi will be defending his title June 22 against Adrien Broner.