Retired two-weight world champion Paulie Malignaggi has predicted the outcome of a fantasy clash between Roy Jones Jr and Andre Ward.
Four-division world champion Jones took the sport by storm during the 1990s, establishing himself as one of the best fighters on the planet during this era.
Despite starting his career as a light-middleweight, Jones later made the move up to heavyweight where he dethroned WBA world champion John Ruiz in March of 2003.
As for Ward, the California-native remains one of the few great champions in boxing history to retire from the sport without suffering a single defeat.
He captured unified world titles at both super-middleweight and light-heavyweight during his career, producing wins over the likes of Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler and Sergey Kovalev.
Speaking to ProBox TV, Malignaggi backed Ward to prevail against Jones as he claims the ‘athletic ability’ of ‘S.O.G’ was seriously underestimate during his professional career.
“I’m gonna go with Andre. Andre hadn’t lost a fight since he was 12-years-old, never lost again. Also, people underestimate Andre’s athletic ability.
“Yes, he was a thinking fighter and a lot of times he was a little bit more stationary and went out in certain spots but I saw Andre win the US Championships when he was 17-years-old and he won it on pure athleticism I mean he was a very good athlete as well.
“He just didn’t always translate it into the ring because a lot of times, especially as a pro, he started to bully you and be physical with you as well, and try to get in your mind in other ways.”
Despite announcing his retirement from the sport in 2017, Ward has actually left the door open for a shock return to the ring, after it was reported last year that the 41-year-old had put himself forward to face two-time world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua.
