A defensive, low-action boxing fight is often referred to generically as a ?chess match?. Well, Saturday night on pay-per-view, fans will get the Sweet Science?s answer to Garry Kasparov vs. one of those IBM-built chess computers that will enslave the human race once they become sentient. Chad Dawson is playing the human here, while the role of our new robot overlords will be played by 46-year-old possible cyborg Bernard Hopkins.
The card itself promises to be Exhibit A for why people who buy pay-per-views should watch all the fights; the most entertaining fight of the night is almost sure to be one of the sideshow attractions. With a junior welterweight title eliminator between two guys with nitroglycerin fists and a lightweight championship bout between combatants with high KO percentages and suspect chins, those looking for fireworks will get their money?s worth on the undercard.
Today we look at all the televised fights, from the first-to-air undercard to the main event:
Paulie Malignaggi (29-4, 6 KOs) vs. Orlando Lora (28-1-1, 19 KOs), 10 rounds, welterweights
A good argument could be made that this fight should have been swapped out for the Collazo-Hernandez scrap on the undercard. Paulie Malignaggi, who looks like a Jersey Shore cast reject and punches like he?s an amorous teenage girl giving her boyfriend a love tap, takes on Mexican bruiser Orlando Lora in the opening televised bout of the evening.
Malignaggi, besides being known for having less power in his fists than an old lady in a Florida retirement community has in hers, is probably best known as having held the IBF strap at junior welterweight at a time when his competition in title fights was against the likes of Lovemore Ndou and Herman Ngoudjo. Whenever he?s fought real championship-caliber fighters, he?s been beaten, including getting knocked out by Ricky Hatton and Amir Khan. ?Magic Man? is more durable than his two KO losses would indicate, since in both cases the end came in the eleventh round, meaning it takes quite a few swings of the ax to chop down the proverbial tree.
