‘Wayne Rooney must be like Jake Paul – I wish to see him combat Ibrahimovic’

Former boxer and analyst Paulie Malignaggi desires to see Wayne Rooney tackle Zlatan Ibrahimovic within the ring and ‘break all pay-per-view records.’

There has been loads of discuss Rooney making an attempt his hand within the ring after he refused to rule out participating in a high-profile bout with Misfits Boxing final month. Manchester United’s all-time main goalscorer loves his boxing and a blockbuster bout between him and his former team-mate has been pushed.

Ibrahimovic, who has a black belt in Taekwondo, has urged to attempt his hand at boxing too. Despite the unimaginable measurement distinction between the pair, Malignaggi has claimed it may break pay-per-view data.

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Malignaggi informed Lord Ping: “Rooney ought to go down the Jake Paul route, you have to combat one other footballer or NBA man, or a rugby man. Start with that. Jake Paul began with retired NBA guys, so I do not assume Wayne goes proper right into a combat with an actual fighter. Go with one other well-known athlete.

“If we will do one other footballer, make Rooney versus Ibrahimovic. That combat would break all pay-per-view data, that will simply do 1,000,000 buys. Easy. Think in regards to the promotion, the video clips of the 2 being bodily on the soccer discipline, you could possibly promote them as fighters in that approach. Wayne and Zlatan is the one I wish to see.”

What footballers would you prefer to see combat one another in a boxing ring? Let us know within the feedback part.

Boxing promoter Kalle Sauerland had beforehand confirmed to talkSPORT that he approached and held a dialogue with the previous England captain about getting into the ring, he stated: “The discussion was, ‘do you want to have a fight?’ The reply was, ‘not quite sure yet, I’m looking at the management side of things.’

“That would have been just after the Birmingham stuff. You look at Wayne and think, of anyone that could have a tear up who has been a footballer, you’d look at Wayne. I was travelling when the story broke, and we’d been in talks with some of his representatives since December. So it wasn’t fresh for me.”

Speaking beforehand on a possible foray into boxing, Rooney informed Gary Neville on the Stick to Football Podcast that he’s nonetheless dedicated to getting again into administration, he stated: “Listen, I want to focus on getting back into management. That’s my focus. And I’ve seen all over the last couple of days all the headlines but my main focus is getting back into football.”