Paulie Malignaggi vs. Laszlo Fazekas is sold out for Saturday

By Boxing News - 09/24/2015 - Comments

malignaggiBy Tim Fletcher: For boxing fans wanting to make the trek to see 34-year-old former two division world champion Paulie “Magic Man” Malignaggi (33-7, 7 KOs) face Hungarian journeyman Laszlo Fazekas (27-21-1, 17 KOs) this Saturday, September 26th in Italy, they’re going to be out of luck.

All of the tickets for the fight have been reportedly sold out, according to Principe Boxing Events. The Malignaggi-Fazekas fight will be taking place at the Teatro Principe, Milan, Lombardia, in Italy. This is a homecoming for Malignaggi, whose parents are Italian and he speaks the language fluently.

Malignaggi has wanted to fight in Italy all his life, and now he finally gets a chance to do so after 14 years as a pro. The timing of this fight is perfect for Malignaggi, as he’s lost 3 out of his last 4 fights in the last two years.

His career has essentially gone bottom up with those defeats to Adrien Broner, Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia. In fairness to Malignaggi, he arguably beat Broner in their fight in June of 2013, but he was given the shaft with Broner getting the victory by a 12 round split decision win. Malignaggi lost his WBA World welterweight title in that defeat.

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It’s been pretty much all downhill for Malignaggi since that loss. Malignaggi’s only win in the last two years was against a shot Zab Judah in 2013, but that wasn’t much of a win because of how completely past it Judah looked in that fight. He wasn’t the fighter he’d been a decade ago, and it was sad to see how far gone Judah was.

“I’m very happy about the interest generated by Paulie’s fight – promoter Alessandro Cherchi said – and I have no doubt that the crowd will rowdy support the Magic Man. Media coverage was also great: more than 70 articles have been published by Italian newspapers, their online versions and sports websites. As for television coverage, national network SportItalia will broadcast the fight next week and networks in Canada, Poland, Middle-East and Africa will do the same. Besides that, former Italian welterweight champion Antonio Moscatiello (who will fight in the show) was interviewed by a popular radio soccer program and that’s good because we give boxing exposure among soccer fans.”

It’s still unknown what Malignaggi will do if/when he defeats the 25-year-old Fazekas on Saturday. It’s not likely that Malignaggi will retire because he can still make good money if he keeps fighting. As long as Malignaggi faces beatable guys like Fazekas, he’ll be able to keep winning and stay in the picture for the bigger money fights like the one he just received in his fight against Danny Garcia last August.

Malignaggi got $500,000 for that fight. If he can continue to get paydays of that type here and there, he’ll be able to build up a nice nest egg for his retirement years. Malignaggi is already wealthy enough to retire and live well the remainder of his life without having to work, but I’m sure he doesn’t mind making another million or two along the way before he eventually hangs up his gloves for good.



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