Porter, Malignaggi, and the Leaping Left Hook

By Michael Byrne - 04/20/2014 - Comments

malignaggi133By Michael Byrne: As everyone is now aware, Saturday night’s ‘History at the Capitol’ show was stolen by IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (24-0-1, 15 KO’s) as he destroyed Paulie Malignaggi (33-6, 7 KO’s) in four rounds at the DC Armory in Washington, DC. Malignaggi is probably finished as far as world-title boxing goes, and so we should take a brief moment to congratulate the man on a fantastic career: from his all-out war with Miguel Cotto in 2006, to beating Lovemore N’Dou in his second shot at a title, two great displays of boxing against Juan Diaz (in which he deserved two victories), coming back from the loss to Amir Khan and moving up to 147 to beat Vyacheslav Senchenko to become a two-weight world champion.

Malignaggi then dropped a tight decision to Adrien Broner last year, but Malignaggi then came back to defeat Zab Judah in front of their Brooklyn fans last December. Although his two title-winning fights came against (very) soft champions, Malignaggi has undoubtedly been a fantastic boxer fighting at world level for almost a decade.

Now, the real significance of Saturday night was the confirmation that Shawn Porter’s win over Devon Alexander last December was no fluke: Porter is indeed a major player in the welterweight division. No one – not a prime Miguel Cotto, not Ricky Hatton, and not Amir Khan, has been able to walk through Paulie like Porter did.

So how did he do it? It was simple. He did it by repeatedly using one punch to take advantage of one flaw in Malignaggi’s game. In between exchanges Paulie would back up in a straight line with his left hand, but more importantly his left shoulder, held low, and Porter jumped on this opportunity to leap in with an alarmingly fast and vicious left hook. If cheetahs threw left hooks at their prey, they would look just like that. He caught Paulie several times with this punch from the second round onwards, until he buckled Paulie’s knees after around a minute of the fourth and really hurt him. Although it was the right hand which earned the first knockdown, it was the vicious left hook which was the single thing Paulie had absolutely no answer to.

Where does, or where can, Porter go from here? The contractual stipulations of his voluntary defence means he’s now obliged to fight his mandatory, Kell Brook (30-0, 22KO). This won’t be easy work, by any means, because Brook is a highly talented boxer and he’s hungry for his first world title, but Porter will doubtless be the betting favorite. With pressure like Porter showed on Saturday night, Brook will struggle to keep his composure.

Porter’s now on the long list, if not the shortlist, for a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr, but let’s not joke: Porter isn’t yet a big enough draw and Floyd will beat him anyway. As a Golden Boy fighter, Porter is currently unable to face Manny Pacquiao, Timothy Bradley, or Juan Manual Marquez, which leaves very few opportunities for Porter to keep rising as a star. Considering the amount of talent at 147, the IBF top-15 contains absolutely no one. Leonard Bundu (30-0, 11KO) and Frankie Gavin (19-0, 12KO) are about the most live fighters in the list, but they’re complete unknowns in USA. The obvious exciting match-up would be with Keith Thurman (22-0, 20KO), interim WBA champ: two undefeated, hungry warriors who love to fight. The winner of Khan vs. Luis Collazo, if they don’t get the Mayweather fight, would also be fun.

But, first things first, Porter needs to focus on Kell Brook. We learnt on Saturday night that there really is a talented and exciting new dog at 147 who fears no one, and will doubtless continue to give us exciting fights.



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