By Nate Anderson: In a recent interview with Setanta Sports, International Boxing Federation light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (25-1, 5 KOs) came out and said that he won’t be stepping aside to let his next opponent Ricky Hatton take on Manny Pacquiao, a much more important fight and one that most boxing fans would prefer to see than seeing a potential mismatch between the stronger Hatton and the light-hitting Malignaggi. The Hatton vs. Malignaggi has stinker written all over it, with most boxing fans seeing Malignaggi jabbing and running all night trying to avoid Hatton’s rough attacks.
It is rather telling, however, that Malignaggi is refusing to take step aside money from Hatton, which if you read into it, it seems as if Malignaggi is worried that Hatton is shot, and might end up losing to Pacquiao which would essentially take a lot of the air out of a potential Hatton-Malignaggi fight. After all, who would want to see Hatton against anyone if he ends up getting destroyed by the smaller Pacquiao. On the flip side, it seems all the more important that Hatton give Malignaggi step aside money, for if he loses to him, a fighter not held in high esteem by many boxing fans, Hatton’s reputation would be greatly diminished in the process.
Pacquiao, no doubt, wouldn’t be interested in fighting Hatton at that point, because what would there be to gain from it. Hatton’s already had problems in his last two fights, getting knocked out by Floyd Mayweather Jr. last December in a 10th round stoppage, and hurt badly twice in the process of defeating Juan Lazcano by a 12-round unanimous decision in May. As for Malignaggi, he’s been extremely fortunate to get decisions over his last two opponents, Herman Ngoudjo and Lovemore N’dou, both of which appeared to beat Malignaggi by many accounts.
Even if you ignore what people say about the fight, Malignaggi looked far from impressive in either fight, not looking like a champion, that’s for sure. He seemed about on the same level as both N’dou and Ngoudjo, fighters that I consider to be B-level rather than top level fighters. Hatton has a lot to lose in a fight with Malignaggi, to be sure. If he loses, its curtains on his boxing career, and you could pretty much forget about a lot of huge future fights against the likes of Pacquiao or any other big-named fighter.
Hatton would still remain popular in England, given that they have no one near as popular as Hatton right now, and they will probably stay by his side until the bitter end. But, as far as the rest of the world goes, a loss to Malignaggi would be the end all for Hatton.
Malignaggi, who appears to have won two consecutive home town decisions, will likely have to work for this one and win it legitimately, because I find it doubtful that he can get an unbelievable three wins in a row by controversial means. More importantly, with Hatton being the much more marketable fighter of the two, he’d likely get the nod if the fight is even remotely close at all. I don’t expect it will be, though, no matter how much running Malignaggi does in the fight.
Hatton just seems to have the style to cause problems for Malignaggi, who has problems against good body punchers like Hatton. In his fight with Miguel Cotto, Malignaggi looked especially vulnerable when he was taking big body shots from Cotto. He looked much better when Cotto was hunting for the head, however, perhaps because Malignaggi uses a lot of head movement and runs a lot, making it hard to connect to his head. His body, though, is something he can’t protect as well even when he’s running.
In his last fight against N’dou, Malignaggi looked slower on his feet, slightly heavier and tight than he had ever before in his career. This would possibly explain why he was unable to get out of the way of many of N’dou’s big shots. It’s unclear whether this is a one-time thing that had due to do with his training or if this is going to be a more permanent problem. If the problem still exists by the time he meets Hatton, you can count on Malignaggi being knocked out viscously.