MALIGNAGGI VS. DIAZ FINAL ROUND & AFTERMATH ANALYSIS

Posted on | August 24, 2009 | No Comments

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Watch the above clip of the final round of Diaz v. Malignaggi, and you will notice body language tells the whole story. Diaz is so busy getting his face mopped up he doesn’t have time to raise his arms. Meanwhile Malignaggi is running around celebrating like a madman. Paulie’s smiling. Diaz is frowning, and we don’t even see a flash of a smile on his face until a few seconds before the decision comes in. One man is acting like a beaten man, and his own mother is praying for a miracle at ringside. The other is acting like he just beat Ali.

The fact is, Malignaggi was the fresher fighter the whole length of the contest. He took some big blows early and lost some points, but he came back and sealed things up in the later rounds with a super smooth “up-jab” and great body and head movement. No man wound up on the canvas, so Gale Van Hoy must have been smoking crack between rounds to judge it 118-110 either way. This was a fight judges had very close, and Harold Lederman’s HBO card was much more accurate. He had Malignaggi winning by 2 rounds. At the very least, the fight should have been declared a draw so we could see it again.

The real problem is we know Paulie won that fight. We saw it with our own eyes. He may not have done it with raging fists and knockout power, but he did it. He picked apart Diaz with precision, accuracy, and a perpetual jab and occasional right. If styles make fights, they should win fights, too. Malignaggi’s style was much better than anything Diaz could muster except for a few moments in the early rounds when Diaz seemed to have Paulie hurt. There’s no excuse for giving the fight to Diaz on a silver platter. Yet, we all know there will be no serious investigation. The fight is in the books and the results won’t change. Paulie will be forever stained by a loss he doesn’t deserve after 12 hard rounds he worked his ass off to be ready for.

Whenever you see the better man walk out the loser, the human reaction is to feel disdain for the perpetrators. Who put the fix in? The problem with boxing is we don’t always know who those people are. It could be a long list of “usual suspects,” but the cardinal rule seems to be what’s done is done, and we can’t go back. Paulie’s post-fight commentary was correct in pointing out that these types of bad decisions are hurting boxing as a sport:

I don’t disagree that boxing is “full of shit,” but of course there is a much better way of saying that in a family-friendly way. However crass he may be, though, Malignaggi is right on the money. There are a great deal of problems with boxing that need to change in the evolution of the sport. This is not a situation instant replay would have helped. Those types of little tweaks may change some outcomes for the better, but not enough. We may not agree with all of Paulie’s fast-talking, hateful, and heat-of-the-moment speech, but we all know what he’s upset about is completely unacceptable in any other sport and should be in boxing, too. In a sport that is so geared on the individual, status, and politics, you have to consider Paulie a very brave man for saying what he did. While he might be right about his “opponent” status whether he said it out loud or not, putting it out there for everyone to hear seals his fate. The sad truth is he may never again see a title shot.

Something needs to change in boxing so these kind of spectacles don’t stain the sport so much anymore. Forget about instant replay. We need instant over-rulings of bad decisions. There has to be a better way than this.

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