Malignaggi dominates Judah; Porter decisions Alexander; Lara defeats Trout

By Boxing News - 12/07/2013 - Comments

02 Judah vs Malignaggi IMG_4649(Photo credit: Tom Casino/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: In a fight between two slightly past it fighters, Paulie Malignaggi (33-5, 7 KO’s) defeated 35-year-old Zab Judah (42-9, 29 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision tonight at the Barclays Center, in Brooklyn, New York. The final judges scores were 116-111, 117-110, and 117-110. Judah knocked Malignaggi down in the in the 2nd round, and shortly after that Judah stopped throwing punches and let Malignaggi dominate the remainder of the fight.

Taking a page out of Miguel Cotto’s playbook, Malignaggi nailed Judah low in the 3rd round in what appeared to be a move to take the fight out of him. Cotto had done the same thing when he had been hurt by Judah in their fight many years ago, and it worked. Judah seemed to lose his aggression after getting hit low. We saw the same thing tonight, although Malignaggi did a lot more than hit Judah with low blows to get control.

Malignaggi was able to pressure Judah and get him backing up in each round of the fight. That seemed to put Judah on the defensive.

After the fight Malignaggi “I’m in the mix,” referring to him being among the names that should be considered for the big fights. But he bad and I can’t picture Malingaggi fighting someone that’s actually good like Floyd Mayweather Jr. That wouldn’t be fair to boxing fans if Mayweather were to fight him next him or any time.

***

Undefeated challenger Shawn Porter (23-0-1, 14 KO’s) pulled off a major upset in defeating IBF welterweight champion Devon Alexander (25-2, 13 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision. Porter chose to rough up Alexander the same way that Tim Bradley did in beating him in the past, and it worked well. Alexander lost his cool and instead of boxing the shorter-armed Porter from the outside and fighting smart, he traded with him gave Porter his only chance to win the fight.

The judges scored it 115-113, 116-112, and 116-112, all for Porter.

***

Showing a lot of speed and impressive defensive skills, Erislandy Lara (19-1-2, 12 KO’s) put on a boxing clinic in defeating Austin Trout (26-2, 14 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision to win the vacant WBA junior middleweight title. Lara knocked Trout down in the 11th round with a chopping left to the head that sent Trout down. Trout fell down on his back with his left leg folded backwards in a painful direction. Thankfully he didn’t injure his leg during the fall. Trout took several more big shots before the round ended.

Lara did a great job of moving and picking Trout off with shots. Without the hand speed to fight Lara from the distance, Trout needed to take the fight to Lara and throw combinations the way that Alfredo Angulo had in their recent fight. But Trout didn’t want to fight like that, and he instead he stayed on the outside and ended up getting out-boxed by the quicker Lara. You would have thought that Trout might have learned his lesson from fighting passively on the outside from his loss to Saul “Canelo” Alvarez last April, but he made the same exact mistakes against Lara and it cost him the fight. If you don’t learn from your mistakes then you’re going to lose every time.

The judges scored the fight 118-109, 117-110, 117-110.

***

In a highly entertaining fight, WBC super middleweight champion Sakio Bika (35-2-2, 21 KOs’) fought to a 12 round draw against the younger, quicker and stronger Anthony Dirrell (26-1, 22 KO’s). Bika had to climb off the canvas in the 5th round after getting knocked down by Dirrell, but Bika did a good job of taking the fight to him to earn a draw. The judges scored it 114-112 for Bika, 116-110 for Dirrell and 113-113 even.

It was kind of a controversial draw though because Bika had seemingly done enough to get the victory. However, his knockdown in the 5th and a point deduction in the 11th cause Bika valuable points. Bika was quite he didn’t get disqualified for the fouls that he did because the referee warned him that he was on the verge of giving him the boot in the 11th. Besides the low blows, Bika also hit Dirrell while he was down on two occasions, and he also forced Dirrell down by using his glove to bend Dirrell backwards over the ropes until he fell. That move looked really dirty by Bika.

Dirrell only has himself to blame for the draw because he made the mistake of staying on the ropes and fighting Bika on the inside instead of staying in the center of the ring where he was much better. Dirrell was so much better when he had Bika in the center of the ring and was boxing him from that area. But Dirrell didn’t seem to understand that he was taking punishment and getting the worst of it each time he would let Bika back him up to the ropes.

***

Other boxing action on the card:

Sadam Ali TKO 6 Jesus Selig
Marcus Browne TKO 1 Kevin Engel
Juan Dominguez UD 8 Camilio Perez



Comments are closed.