When you see Paulie Malignaggi heading towards a microphone, you don’t know whether to prepare to laugh or to cringe. In reality, usually it turns out to be a little of both.
“When he goes off,” his promoter, Lou DiBella, told me with a shrug, “I mean, I sometimes… like, I tremor! He goes off and I’m sitting there shaking my head…”
But it’s mostly endearing, right?
“Oh yeah! It’s definitely mostly endearing, but he says certain things, and then people hold me accountable for things that Paulie says. I can’t control Paulie’s month. I mean, I’ve given up a long time ago censoring Paulie Malignaggi.”
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Full transcripts – I thought they were too entertaining not to post in their entirety.
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The biggest surprise with the Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather drug testing argument is that I actually at one time hoped this fight would come off without a hitch. I guess that plays into my desire to have a big fight happen for once with none of the nonsense and posturing that usually goes into this sport. But that’s unrealistic.
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I’ve had an affinity for Paulie Malignaggi ever since I interviewed him back in 2004 at a press conference and informed him that I was a better fighter than he was. I couldn’t help it! The guy was so brash at such an early stage in his career, and yet completely insistent that he was the best boxer from New York. I wanted to push his buttons a little.
Luckily, the Brooklynite was as good-natured as he was loquacious, as we shared a good laugh and – thank God! – he declined to test my pugilistic abilities. (The only fights I have are with my landlady over how high to raise the thermostat)
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If you’ve been reading, you know SportsAngle is largely in tune with the hip-hop community. (As recently as this month, I shook hands with the great Ghostface Killah) So I watched with keen interest as the Yankees announced that Jay-Z – who has carved out more and more of a presence in sports lately as part-owner of the Nets and celebrity friend of LeBron James – would perform his new song, Empire State of Mind, at Game 1 of the World Series.
And I’m here to tell you the Yankees made a lousy pick.
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We’ve been advocates of Paulie Malignaggi for over five years here, even interviewing him for the previous iteration of SportsAngle.com. He’s a likable kid, very funny and cocky, but prideful and devoted to his craft, with jabs as fast as his quips.
Who knew he’d be such a strong voice in calling out what’s wrong with boxing?
Malignaggi fought Houston native Juan Diaz in Diaz’s own city last Saturday night, and essentially 
acknowledged before the fight that he was going to get a raw deal. Contractually forced to make a catch weight lower than he was used to and fight in a smaller ring that limited his greatest advantage, his speed and elusiveness, Malignaggi made no secret about the fact that he didn’t expect the opportunity to actually win the fight by decision. Essentially, the deck was stacked against him.
His one saving grace was a promise that the fight would be officiated fairly and that the judges would be a varied panel and not just hometown stooges. But as Malignaggi found when he got to Houston, the referee was the son of Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation official Dickie Cole, and the judges included biased Texan Gale Van Hoy, Oklahoman David Sutherland, and Raul Caiz Sr., who Malignaggi called “a gofer for Golden Boy and a guy who’s biased in favor of Mexican-American fighters.”
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When you see Paulie Malignaggi heading towards a microphone, you don’t know whether to prepare to laugh or to cringe. In reality, usually it turns out to be a little of both.
