Paulie Malignaggi

By Jim Dower: Light welterweight Ricky Hatton (44-1, 31 KOs) will be fighting with his career on the line when he takes on Paulie Malignaggi on November 22nd at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hatton, 30, has hinted at retirement if he’s defeated by Malignaggi, and we may end up seeing just that occurring unless Hatton shows some vast improvement upon his last two performances in his career. Malignaggi is a young, active fighter who specializes in making his opponents miss and look bad. He probably is the wrong kind of fighter for Hatton at this point of his struggling career, especially with all of yo-yo binge weight gains that he’s put on between fights.

The effects started showing up in his fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in December 2007, a bout in which Hatton didn’t look nearly as good as he had in earlier in his career when he was beating the likes of Vince Phillips and Kostya Tszyu. I don’t see it as a case of Mayweather having too much skill for him, although he is very skilled, but more rather a case of Hatton not having the same kind of animal-like energy that he had previously in his career, before he stared having issues with weight gain in between fights.

read more

By Jim Dower: With only a month left before Ricky Hatton’s (44-1, 31 KOs) light welterweight showdown with Paulie Malignaggi (25-1, 5 KOs), there has been very little fan interest for this bout. Although I frankly can’t says I’m surprised that no one really cares to see it, because Malignaggi was a poor choice as an opponent to begin with. And when Malignaggi gave up his IBF light welterweight title, the little interest I had in the fight completely died out. Instead of the IBF title being on the line, there’s only Hatton’s little known IBO trinket.

One of Hatton’s rationales for choosing Malignaggi rather than, say, the WBC light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley, was that Malignaggi had Hatton’s former IBF title. I’m not sure what the appeal was for Hatton in trying to recapture that particular title rather than the WBC belt, because both of them seem the same to me, but I suppose Hatton was sentimental or something. With that said, when the title was removed from the picture recently when Malignaggi vacated the belt, the sole reason for Malignaggi was effectively eliminated. At that point, why fight him at all? The much more appealing option then, at least as far as I’m concerned, was for Hatton to give up the idea of fighting Malignaggi and instead go after the WBC belt held by Bradley.

read more

By Dan Ambrose: Thirty years old is considered old age for most smaller fighters in the sport of boxing. In the case of Ricky Hatton (44-1, 31 KOs), it may signal a fighter that is long ago ready for his rocking chair. He hasn’t helped his case with his binge eating and drinking in between fights, a practice that has caused him frequently to put on an enormous amount of fat that he’s subsequently been forced to take off while training for fights.

Recently, Hatton stated that he plans on fighting three more times, once against Paulie Malignaggi in November, another against the winner of Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao, and a third possibly against Floyd Mayweather Jr., if Floyd decides to end his retirement and come back.

read more

By Dave Lar: In a bit of bad news for Ricky Hatton, IBF light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi reportedly vacated the title rather than agreeing to face his number one mandatory challenger Herman Ngoudjo. Apparently, Ngoudjo was willing to wait until Malignaggi fought Hatton in November, but wanted to be guaranteed a fight against the winner. However, it appears that no guarantees were given to him, which forced Malignaggi to give up the belt. The belt will now be fought over between Juan Urango (20-1-1, 16 KOs) and Ngoudjo.

The news, although not probably not as crucial for Malignaggi because he looked to be a long shot to defeat Hatton, it’s a especially bad news for Hatton because he had hopes of regaining the title. This was one of his main reasons for choosing to fight Malignaggi. Now, it looks as if that unless Hatton is willing to wait the outcome of Urango-Ngoudjo and fight the winner, he will have to seek out one of the other light welterweight champions like WBO title holder Kendall Holt, WBA champion Andrea Kotelnik or Timothy Bradley, the WBC champion. With Hatton interested in possible future bouts against Manny Pacquiao or Oscar De La Hoya, it seems doubtful that he will go after one of the aforementioned title holders.

read more

By Michael Lieberman: Not holding back his punches in the least, International Boxing Federation light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (25-1, 5 KOs) let loose the dogs of war with some recent comments made to Ring magazine, saying “Hatton is a limited fighter. He can’t box…I just don’t think he’s much of a fighter, or was ever much of a fighter.” Malignaggi, 27, is probably the finest light welterweight in the division at this point in his career, having beaten excellent fighters like Herman Ngoudjo, Lovemore N’dou, Edner Cherry and lost a life and death battle to Miguel Cotto.

If Malignaggi’s credentials weren’t so impeccable, I would probably dismiss at once his comments and consider them merely bluster on his part. However, he’s shown to be one of the best fighters in the game and knows boxing through and through. So if he says that Hatton is a limited fighter, I guess I have to believe in what he says. Not through with throwing darts at Hatton, Malignaggi had one final pearl of wisdom to say about Hatton, commenting in the same interview with Ring magazine, “He’s [Hatton] the John Ruiz of the junior welterweight class.”

read more

By Sean McDaniel: Ricky Hatton (44-1, 31 KOs) will be challenging IBF light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (25-1, 5 KOs) on November 22nd, at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hatton, 29, already is a huge favorite to defeat Malignaggi, and regain his IBF light welterweight title. However, Hatton may be in for a bit of a shocker in this one, for Malignaggi has impeccable boxing skills which are a cut above that of Hatton and barring a knockout victory for Hatton, this may turn out to be a case of Malignaggi having too much skill for the slower, less skilled Hatton to deal with.

For those who may have forgotten, Malignaggi already gave a tough fight to Miguel Cotto in June 2006, battling him to the wire before losing a close 12-round decision. As good as Hatton is as a fighter, he’s probably not in the class of Cotto and likely never will be as good a fighter as the Puerto Rican star. Malignaggi, using movement, pinpoint punches and expert defense, gave Cotto fits in the bout. At the time of the fight, Cotto fought much in the same way that Hatton does, pressuring constantly, coming forward in a straight line attempting to slug it out. Malignaggi showed what class he has by dealing with Cotto’s style and almost proving to be better than him in the fight.

read more

By Manuel Perez: According to a recent interview on boxingtalk.com, IBF light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi has this to say about former champion Ricky Hatton: “He cannot take a punch. To the head to the body, I’ve been saying this for years he cannot take a punch and that’s why he fights the way he does.” Malignaggi went on to say that the reason that Hatton tends to hold so much is that he is prevent his opponents from getting as much as power on their shots so as to avoid getting hurt.

To top it off, Malignaggi later on said that he wouldn’t be surprised that he knocks Hatton out, which seems somewhat odd considering that Malignaggi isn’t known for having much power to speak of. However, if there’s one thing that Hatton seems to have problems with is handling punches that he doesn’t see coming at him. For instance, in his fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in December 2007, it was a lightning fast left hook that hurt Hatton in the 10th round, sending him bouncing off the corner protective padding and falling to the canvas. A short while later, Hatton was obliterated by a flurry of speedy shots from Mayweather, many of which were far too fast for Hatton to attempt block. With Malignaggi, his speed is almost as good as Mayweather, maybe a shade or two slower if that.

read more