Paulie Malignaggi is on a collision course with Adrien Broner, a fighter who many feel is on the fast track to superstardom. Most fans were turned off by the announcement because they feel Broner has a lot of opponents to choose from at 135-140 and they feel he is picking on Malignaggi because of his recent performance in his last fight with Pablo Cesar Cano. The fight with Cano for Malignaggi is a fight most fans thought he lost and ‘til this day Malignaggi still has to address it in interviews, like he did with us when he was a guest on ThaBoxingVoice Radio.
Malignaggi went into great detail in describing this fight and the fan reaction. “I’ve admitted in fights in my career where I thought fights were close and maybe it wasn’t clear, but my fight with Cano wasn’t one of them. You know a lot of people are going off CompuBox numbers which are basically based on a human touching a button and it’s liable to human error. What he think lands and what he think doesn’t land. They don’t take into account of how hard the shot landed, how clean it landed, did it land, and did it not land? A lot that went into that fight,” Malignaggi told ThaBoxingVoice.com.
Malignaggi also feels the fight was being controlled by him and that you don’t really see him slowing down until the late rounds. “Showtime has no commercials in between rounds. I’m a white guy. If you hit me dead in my face, you will see a mark on my face. You don’t see a mark in my face till round 9, that in itself should tell you cleanly or how cleanly Cano landed. Ultimately you see in the in the last 4 rounds when I start getting marked up and take clean shots, and that’s when I started slowing down. To that you’re really not seeing much else besides me controlling the fight. The whole language of the fight was being controlled by Paulie Malignaggi. It wasn’t being dictated by Pablo Cano. You got to take into consideration of who was controlling the fight. You also got to take into consideration of who’s landing the cleaner shots because the judges don’t have access to CompuBox. The one that judges that had Cano winning the fight admitted he made a mistake.”
While he understands why the fans are upset, he doesn’t agree with them, especially because he doesn’t feel he has the power to merit a robbery like other big names. “99% of the fans don’t know what they’re watching and rely on CompuBox. There’s no reason for me to get the nod because I’m not a fan favorite, not a promoter’s favorite. I’m not that fighter where people say you lose a lot of money if I lose like a Canelo Alvarez or a Floyd Mayweather. There no reason to rob anyone on behalf of me,” explained Malignaggi.
Even with that loss, Malignaggi has managed to stay in the center of things, with his name being called out by many. Malignaggi understands that comes with the territory.
“Anytime you have the title you have something they want. I know how to keep myself in the limelight, and if I wasn’t holding this title, I’d probably chase the guys who did,” stated Malignaggi.
One guy who did such a thing this past Saturday was welterweight Keith Thurman at the post fight press conference after his victory over Jan Zaveck. Malignaggi all but expected him to do so.
“I don’t mind him calling me out. I wasn’t surprised him calling me out. I felt like he was going to say a thing or two but I didn’t think he was going to go so deep into it. I didn’t appreciate the base in his voice saying I was ducking him like he really believed it. He’s talking me like I was his dog, like Paulie F U son! Then he started putting real base in his voice, so I had to say something.”
Thurman went on to say that he’d beat all of Paulie victories and losses; he even said that he would beat the Miguel Cotto that Malignaggi lost to. That’s the same Cotto that Malignaggi feels was the toughest fight of his career.
“I don’t think he beats Cotto right now, matter of fact; I don’t think his own guys thinks he beats Cotto right now. If he thinks he beats Cotto right now than Al Haymon would put him in with Miguel Cotto right now, matter of fact I don’t think they would put Keith Thurman in the same arena as Miguel Cotto. I’m not trying to stir up controversy but Keith Thurman opened his mouth and he’s talking about the Cotto I fought 10 years ago, the Cotto that was knocking everyone out. I don’t think Keith Thurman beats Cotto right now, let alone the one 10 years ago,” explained Malignaggi.
For Audio of this interview click here: http://thaboxingvoice.cogito24.com/paul-malignaggi-roman-morales-weekend-recap/11067
