Before the main event on Saturday night at the Pepsi Coliseum in Quebec City, Canada- where WBC light heavyweight titlist Jean Pascal defends his belt against future Hall-of-Famer, Bernard Hopkins- two of Golden Boy Promotions’ newest clients make their debut for the company, Paulie Malignaggi and Peter Quillin. Both a pair of boxers that hail from Brooklyn, who have set their roots in Hollywood, California at the Wild Card Boxing Club.
For Quillin, this trip out west is all about work.
“This is totally business for me, nothing personal,” said the undefeated middleweight, who has a mark of 21-0 with 15 stoppages. Asked about this migration, he explained, “I kinda conquered New York. Everybody knows me there and I had a great opportunity to work with Freddie Roach here at the Wild Card. This was a thing I could not say no to. I needed change and since I’ve been here, I’ve met new people and people see something different in me.”
Coming to Southern California has been a bit of a culture shock for ?Kid Chocolate.?
“Los Angeles is different,” he says. “You see a lot of people here that maybe don’t want to hang around you because you’re a nice guy but more so because they see you can be middleweight champion of the world. For the most part, it’s a great atmosphere, great environment to train here. But this is a very lonely city and it’s something I have to get used to. But I think it’ll be all good for me.”
Now when it comes to ?The Magic Man,? in many respects he is the quintessential Italian-American kid from the Bensonhurst/Brooklyn region but get this, he enjoys being in Tinseltown.
“I actually really, really like Los Angeles; I love New York. I’ve actually been living in New York the past couple of years,” explained Malignaggi, whose last fight was an 11th-round stoppage loss at the hands of Amir Khan. “I’ve got a place in Miami but I expect to be spending a lot more time in Los Angeles in the near future. I actually like Los Angeles; I didn’t think I’d like it as much as I did but I’m not finding myself missing the East Coast. I’m actually embracing the West Coast and I’m liking it a lot.”
Seriously though, given some of the stuff Malignaggi has stated in the past about the suspicions of Manny Pacquiao’s use of performance-enhancing drugs and that he is so closely tied to the Big Apple, isn’t this a bit like Biggie cutting an album on the West Coast in the late ?90s?
“Yeah, that’s a good analogy,” said Malignaggi, laughing at the thought. “But no, everyone’s been really, really cool; I gotta say. I enjoy the weather; I enjoy the people; I enjoy the chilled, laid-back attitude. I expect to spend a lot more time here.”
Malignaggi signed with Golden Boy for a very basic reason. “The expectation is basically to take me back to a big place in my career,” he explained. “Every fighter has an expectation to reach the top of the sport. A high level where you’re respected as a fighter, where you’re on a respectable level and at a level where you’re basically paid well. So my expectations are all of the above. I want to get back to that top level of boxing; I want to fight the top-level guys. I want to get paid like a top-level fighter and I understand this is a step. But the deal with Golden Boy, besides being on the financial end, something I’m satisfied with, it’s also something that looks like a good outline and a plan to get me back where I want to be. And that’s what I really get the most satisfaction out of.”
For him, this is the last chapter of his story that has seen him win a world title and participate in fights against the likes of Ricky Hatton and Khan. At age 30, he knows he’s much closer to the end than the beginning.
“Yeah, I’m not one of these guys that wants to fight when they’re 35 or 40. I don’t want to overstay my welcome,” says Malignaggi, who faces Michael Lozada this weekend. “Besides the fact that, really, my speed is what made me the fighter I am, my reflexes and my speed. Those are the things that go before anything else. So I am looking at it as one last stand but y’ know, I’m not looking at it as one last stand for a guy who has nothing left and is just being stubborn about it. I’m looking at it like I still have enough bullets in the gun and enough of an arsenal where I can put together another run and fight against top-level opposition and belong in the ring and possibly beat them.
“So it’s definitely a last stand. It’s a last stand to where I feel, especially being at the Wild Card, being with Eric Brown, really good,? Malignaggi said. ?The work is good; I really feel good. The atmosphere is good and so I think all the pieces are in place to where I want to make another run. I have everything I need inside the ring and outside the ring to be really good consistently. And not just professionally, my personal life. A lot has changed over the course of the last six-to-12 months for me. And even in the past two years, I probably have none of the same people around me, personally or professionally. So a lot has changed; I embrace the changes. Some of them, at first, may not have looked so good. Some of them looked great automatically but either way, I’m embracing everything that’s going on. I feel like I’m in good shape; I feel like I’m in a good place to make a run at a top level fight.”
For much of this camp, Malignaggi sported two blackened eyes. It was clear he was getting in some tough sparring at the Wild Card. Brown, who works with him on a daily basis, told Maxboxing, “Let me tell you something; Paulie Malignaggi is a f**king fighter. This guy, he’ll box with anybody and I’ve been putting him in there with some kids that are tough. They’re strong guys and he gets in there and he mixes it up. He jumped in there his first day back; he jumped right away with a couple of guys that were strong and sharp- he didn’t care. He wanted to work and even though he was rusty, he got in there and did what he had to do. But he still shows that he’s still got it and shows that he still has the desire to get out there and do it.”
Quillin, unlike Malignaggi, has never been to the top levels of the sport. He’s been stuck in Prospectville for a few years now. His bout at the Pepsi Coliseum versus Martin Desjardins is his first since early February, when he decisioned Fernando Zuniga over ten heats at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
“It’s been a long, long frustrating road and still never-ending,” Quillin says of his journey. His career has been plagued by injuries and promotional difficulties. Before GBP, he was under the banner of Cedric Kushner. “My view was like, sometimes in this game, you have to have strong people backing you and I feel like I wasn’t getting the right kind of fights that would propel me to a superstar level. I wasn’t feeling secure with the fights that they did want to give me and I was just like, ‘It’s time to move on.'”
Boxers can control everything inside the ring but at times, they can control almost nothing that takes place out of it, as it relates to their career.
Quillin says, “That is the most helpless feeling. You feel down and out; you feel like no one can ever understand what exactly you’re going through. Especially at that time when I was going through that, trying to get my point across and it seemed like nobody was listening to me. So eventually what I did was, I kicked everybody out of the driver?s seat and placed myself there for a second and started driving in the direction I wanted where I wanted to go.”
He considers the past ten months have to have been a cleansing period in his life and career. “Of course, but I know certain things I’m not going to be able to control. I’m a little bit more aware of the things that can happen in this sport. This is a sport where you have to just live in the gym and also you have to have a certain lifestyle that you live outside the gym.” His career is now handled by his manager John Seip and attorney Walter Cane.
“This guy?s got talent up the butt,” said Brown, who has assisted Roach in training Quillin. “I mean, he can box; he can fight; he’s got a great chin; he’s very durable and he’s a smart fighter. And I think he’s still under the radar right now. A lot of people are snoozing on him but hopefully, all that’s going to change pretty soon.”
Quillin is only 27 and hopes to be put into position where he can be considered for the likes of Sergio Martinez, Sergei Dzindziruk and Felix Sturm in the near future. The first step in that plan was signing on with Golden Boy.
“He was brought to my attention and we started to have conversations,” recalled Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy. “I actually talked to Don Chargin about him, our adviser. Don talked very highly about Peter. He actually fought one of Don’s fighters and very easily took care of him in a manner in which really surprised Don. Don was very high on him; he has a very good record, undefeated, and I think he is another one of these young fighters who deserve an opportunity to fight for a world title.
“I met him; I have to say, he’s a very polite young man. He comes across very well, seems to be really hunger. He’s now training now at Freddie Roach’s gym. So it’s a perfect fit. It’s interesting to see Paulie and Peter both training at Wild Card. So you have these two New Yorkers training here on the West Coast, of course with us being from the West Coast. I like it; we can stay in touch with them and talk to them, coach them and so on.
“So with both of these fighters, it’s turning out to be a really nice relationship.”
WILD CARD
For this section of the Article, Click Here: Wild Card (Paulie Malignaggi on Roach’s Gym vs Gleason’s) – Steve Kim
BARCLAY CENTER
One of the reasons why Golden Boy inked the Gotham City duo is their agreement to stage a regular series of cards at the Barclay Center in New York, which is scheduled to open its doors in 2010.
“We basically want to position some of these kids to be either world champions or in a position to fight for the world title. So I think from a timing point of view, that should work out perfectly,” said Schaefer, who mentioned Danny Jacobs (who is also on the card in Quebec City) as being a prominent part of this program. “Paulie Malignaggi went through a lot of fights but he’s relatively young and so he’s definitely has not seen the final chapter. So I think there’s another chapter which will be written and it will be nice for us if we can guide him to a world title or win a world title at the Barclay Center.”
QUEBEC FLURRIES
The best thing about Pascal-Hopkins is that it’s on ?free? Showtime. The worst thing about Pascal-Hopkins is that it’s on ?free? Showtime….So was the scuffle those two had at the final presser on Wednesday afternoon their first clinch of many to come?…I said to Malignaggi about a month ago, “You should get some rounds in against Lozada.” He responded, “Steve, who are you talking to? I get rounds in against EVERYBODY.” We both got a good laugh out of that…So let me get this straight; HBO deems Sebastian Zbik not good enough for their airwaves versus Sergio Martinez- which is certainly their prerogative- yet they approved Freddie Hernandez for Andre Berto? Just wonder, what if Martinez was with the Haymon Boxing Organization? But moving forward, does this mean we now get Martinez-Andy Lee?…RIP to Bob Feller…So is Amar’e Stoudemire better than everyone thought? He seems to be doing just fine in New York sans Steve Nash….
