P. T. Barnum used to say that the secret to success is notoriety. Barnum?s traveling sideshows relied on this idea to brand his name: after deceiving the public with some outrageous hoax, he would plant stories in the local press to crudely expose his own deceptions?just to get the audience to pay a second time to confirm the rumors. The art of the hoax, as Barnum knew, is not just in the first act of deception, but in getting people to pay over and over to preen in their moral outrage over how obviously fake the hoax is.
Barnum-like humbug makes a touring stop on Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, where unified junior welterweight champion Danny Garcia finally steps up to bonafide welterweight against local loudmouth Paulie Malignaggi for the second Premier Boxing Champions show on ESPN. Promoted openly as the ritual chumming of the veteran to a young shark, this fight proposes to be the latest in a series of hoaxes that the PBC has conjured up for boxing fans this summer, on the heels of the farcical Shumenov-Flores spectacle. Despite sideshows involving the disreputable Memo Heredia joining Malignaggi?s camp, and Garcia?s reliably buffoonish father Angel, the upshot promises to be straightforward: that Malignaggi is past his prime and that Garcia is too good for him anyway.
Notoriety is what Malignaggi, 33-6 (7), brings to the table. At 34, ?The Magic Man? works his gab game twice as well as he did in earlier days. And why not? Having won two world title belts (in six attempts), Malignaggi stands close enough to his elite peers to feel them whiz by him on the way up. Once a vocal critic of PBC baron Al Haymon, Malignaggi turned his strident attacks other directions once Haymon decided he could play the role of ladder rung for his many young climbers. Even as a harmless but cranky malcontent, Malignaggi is charming in the way of a supper club master of ceremonies, with his garish costumes, his over-learned style, and his utter shamelessness. His posturing and plumage are enough to make Garcia?s store-bought ?cool? look earnest.
Garcia?s reputation, by contrast, has bellied up due to a passive attitude toward the arc of his own career. The hand-picked foes and debatable decisions of the last two years have given Garcia, 30-0 (17), the appearance of being privileged. Instead of facing tougher fighters during his prime years, the 27-year-old Garcia has committed the unforgivable sin of appearing to side with management to defend himself against fan complaints. The prospect of the Malignaggi fight captures something essential about Garcia?s status these days: he?s damned if he beats Malignaggi and damned if he doesn?t ? and doubly damned when he opens his mouth either way.
The collective groan among boxing fans for this fight comes not only for these bald pretensions but also for the unoriginality of the style clash. Malignaggi, Brooklyn, New York, has fit the typecast role of Declining Veteran many times over the last five years, first against Amir Khan in 2010, and more recently in a devastating KO loss to Shawn Porter. Garcia, too, has followed his script as the young buck in wins over aging Erik Morales (twice) and Zab Judah. That he struggled with those former greats is no excuse to repeat the offense of fighting yet another of them.
It is easy enough to imagine that the fight itself will play out in the expected way, with Malignaggi jabbing and dancing to keep Garcia turning in useless circles, and Garcia waiting with his squared-off stance to respond with counter left hooks. Garcia?s ability to damage tougher past foes like Matthysse with one punch bodes ill for Malignaggi, who faces twelve rounds of moving if he wants to avoid the sudden fate that befell him against Porter. If the fight goes as the public knows it will, then Garcia will break Malignaggi down pretty quickly.
But if we play the huckster?s game of speculation, we might well find a reason for doubt by turning to the common strength of both fighters: timing. Malignaggi has proven adaptable as a boxer well into his thirties despite depleted reserves of hand and foot speed. He closes and expands distance to keep opponents at the mercy of his jittery movement. If Malignaggi is still footloose enough, Garcia will stalk and stalk with the same baffled reticence he showed against Mauricio Herrera and Lamont Peterson and may find himself staring at yet another close decision.
The far more likely scenario is the steady trigger-click of Garcia?s counters over Malignaggi?s jab, eventually dropping him to the canvas to commune with the ghosts of Amir Khan and Lucas Matthysse. When the fight is brought to him, Garcia has shown that he can bring it right back. But even if Garcia proves his authority and youth, we?ll still be left scratching our heads, wondering who?s really the bigger sucker: the fellow who buys into the lie, or the fellow who watches because he knows better and wants to see, along with everyone else, just how right he was?
