Paulie Malignaggi has become the essence of a professional. He fights for money not glory.
Certainly, world titles remain important to him, which is why he was happy to learn recently he?d be facing newly crowned IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter April 19 in Porter?s first title defense, but the difficulties of making a living as a prizefighter long ago ground down his dreams. Malignaggi (33-5, 7 KOs) still fights, both in the ring and at the negotiating table, but he stopped dreaming a long time ago.
?I?m indifferent,? Malignaggi said of what led to a shot at his third world championship in his second weight class after having lost that title by dubious split decision last June to Adrien Broner, who was himself beaten to a pulp in his next fight by Marcos Maidana. ?I approach it now like a job. I approach it in a responsible manner, but that dream I had as a kid is gone. That?s unfortunate, but it?s part of the growing process. Dreams like mine can be shattered. A career in boxing will eventually ruin that dream somehow.
?I fell out of love with boxing. I was 40-9 as an amateur and I cried after every amateur loss. I cried after my first two losses as a pro too. I never cried again over losing after that.?
That first tearless loss came on Aug. 22, 2008 to Juan Diaz in Diaz? hometown of Houston. Texas has become notorious for absurd refereeing and hometown judging and Malignaggi predicted before the fight that the match would be stolen from him, even naming one of the judges, Gale Van Hoy, as likely to have a card that bore no resemblance to reality.
That night, Van Hoy saw Malignaggi as a 118-110 loser in a fight another judge gave to Diaz 115-113. The third had it 116-112 for Diaz. Many observers felt the scores should have been reversed, a point Malignaggi rammed home four months later when he easily outpointed Diaz in a rematch in Chicago. Although the hue and cry raised after the first fight forced the rematch, Malignaggi had seen too many nights like that in boxing by then to not realize this is a sport as much of nightmares as it is of dreams.
He?d seen too many deals brokered in darkened boardrooms, too many deserving fighters passed over for title shots because they were simply too dangerous an opponent, too many decisions that defied logic and refereeing that was at best incompetent. Too much, in the end, to keep alive an amateur?s dream of prize fighting.
?I have issues with the business side of boxing,? said Malignaggi, who has seen most of those issues disappear since signing with the sport?s most powerful manager, Al Haymon. ?All the bad situations around me in the Ricky Hatton fight led to me having to be in someone?s hometown as an opponent. When I predicted what would happen to me (in Houston), I was looking for a life-preserver. I was crying out for help in hopes the Texas Commission wouldn?t have (expletive) enough to rob me. The media put them on the spot after the fight, but the media doesn?t know crap about boxing either. That amazes me.
?There are a few exceptions, but they watch every week and don?t know what they?re doing. If I spent that much time watching something and wrote and said what they do I?d feel very ignorant. I?d feel stupid.?
Malignaggi is anything but stupid. He cited the rise of Saul ?Canelo? Alvarez, whom he calls ?a business? more than a fighter as a result of greater marketing than boxing skills, and found it amazing that HBO would do a 24/7 series on Julio Cesar Chavez and Brian Vera for their rematch, two guys he called ?club fighters.?
?When they do things like that they just water down the product,? Malignaggi said. ?What I?ve learned is the only way to have your voice heard is to keep winning.?
He has done enough of that to win titles at both 140 and 147 pounds.
Malignaggi has long believed he?s never been forgiven for his lackluster loss to Hatton in 2008, a down time in his career when he was beset with the loss of his dream. He has righted himself since with the help of Haymon?s connections and believes firmly that April 19, if politics don?t interfere, he will be champion again. If he is he?ll be happy but not because he fulfilled a boy?s dream. He?ll be happy because that?s the business he?s now in: winning to open doors to a big payday.
?I was a bad fighter in 2008 in general,? Malignaggi said. ?The Paulie Malignaggi who fought Miguel Cotto in 2006 beats Hatton in 2008. I wasn?t that guy then. I?m better now than I ever was but I?ve never been really forgiven for the Hatton fight.?
Malignaggi understands how and why this opportunity came to him and it has little to do with what he?s earned. Rather it?s a result of name recognition and the mistake so many have made about his relative lack of punching power. Of that, Malignaggi is quite sure.
?I wasn?t surprised,? Malignaggi said. ?I bring a big name to the table, but people don?t view me as a viable opponent because I don?t have punching power. Maybe I don?t but I make you look bad. Those little punches add up. Sharp shots shock you. They keep you off-guard and throw a guy?s rhythm off. You got to be busy in that style but it works.?
So does Paulie Malignaggi. He works at boxing every day. He just doesn?t dream about it anymore.
Fighting words
It didn?t take long for Argentine-born middleweight champion Sergio Martinez and three-division titleholder Cotto to get into it during their cross-country media tour hyping a June 7 showdown at Madison Square Garden, and it was Cotto who put the gloves on first.
The tour kicked off in Puerto Rico and Cotto suggested Martinez had used knee and hand injuries as excuses for a subpar performance vs. Martin Murray and a last-round knockdown that nearly cost him what to that point was a one-sided victory over Chavez. Being 38, it took Martinez a day to counter, finally firing back that Cotto disrespected him for years.
Cotto?s disrespect has been an ongoing theme with Martinez dating back to several years ago when he approached Cotto at a Mexican TV studio and felt he blew him off. Martinez (51-2-2, 28 KOs) grew agitated again during lengthy negotiations for the fight when Cotto insisted on being in the champion?s corner, having his name listed first in promotional materials and walking to the ring last even though Cotto is the challenger.
?Don?t forget one thing,? Martinez said. ?We are gonna fight because I am the champion and I?m coming into the ring first and he?s coming in second, otherwise there would be no fight. I go to the blue corner and I really don?t care, because I?m the champion and if it wasn?t for that he won?t fight. I will be introduced first in the ring because if it wasn?t that way Cotto would not fight me. I can imagine on June 7 that he?s going to ask for rose petals, otherwise he won?t walk into the ring. No more excuses. On June 7, I?m gonna win!?
Sounds like Michael Buffer will not have to bellow ?Let?s get it on!? that night.
ESPN gets in ring
Despite continuing ill-founded reports of its demise, boxing lives on.
The latest sign of its robustness comes with the announcement that ESPN will televise the May 10 Bermane Stiverne-Chris Arreola showdown for the vacant WBC heavyweight title long held by recently retired Vitali Klitschko. That is not ESPN2, the home of ?Friday Night Fights,? or ESPN Deportes or ESPNU or ESPN fill-in-the-blank. The fight will be aired on regular ESPN in prime time, the card beginning at 8 p.m.
Although ESPN has televised boxing since its inception, it has never done a show on regular prime time and rumors abound that this will be the first of three or four such shows on the regular cable network. What was that about boxing being dead?
Short jabs
Apparently George Groves doesn?t trust anyone, including his fellow countrymen. Groves is set to fight Carl Froch in a rematch at 90,000-seat Wembley Stadium May 31, but recently insisted he won?t show up unless the British Boxing Board of Control appoints ?neutral officials? from foreign countries. That?s because Froch retained his WBA and IBF titles with a ninth-round stoppage Nov. 23 despite Groves leading decidedly at the time. When the fight was stopped Groves was hurt, but had not been down and was firing back as Froch closed in. That didn?t dissuade referee Howard Foster from stopping the fight prematurely.
The IBF ordered a rematch claiming the referee had acted ?inappropriately.? The rematch is expected to set a post-World War II attendance record for a boxing match in Britain after the first 60,000 tickets sold out quickly. The record is 56,000 in 2008 for Hatton-Juan Lazcano at City of Manchester Stadium. . . .
Alvarez? recent need to pay Alfredo Angulo $100,000 to buy an extra pound before their fight two weeks ago is the latest in a growing body of evidence that a return to weigh-ins the day of the fight is necessary. The change to the day before was originally for safety purposes, allowing fighters to avoid dehydration problems, but now they don?t make weight, they avoid making it. Knowing he would be unable to make the 154-pound contract weight at the Friday weigh-in, Alvarez negotiated the limit up to 155. . . .
American heavyweight hopeful Deontay Wilder continued toward a title shot last weekend when he crushed a guy who was supposed to be a friend of his, journeyman Malik Scott, in one round to win a title eliminator and put himself in line as the mandatory opponent for the Stiverne-Arreola winner. That knockout lifted the former Olympic bronze medalist to his 31st consecutive victory, all by KO. He?s not knocking out heavy iron and remains untested but if he can win the WBC title he?ll be on a collision course with unified champion Wladimir Klitschko.
