By Michael Liberman: IBF super lightweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (24-1, 5 KOs) makes his second defense of his title on Saturday night against former IBF super lightweight champion Lovemore N’dou (46-9, 31 KOs), whom he defeated by a lopsided 12-round unanimous decision in June 2007. Malignaggi, 27, appeared to be much too fast for the slower of foot N’dou, who unsuccessfully chased Malignaggi around the ring for 12-rounds without much luck. Unless Malignaggi makes a mistake and gets caught without something big, we’ll likely see him come out on top for the second time against the 36 year-old N’dou.
As far as power goes, Malignaggi doesn’t come close to having the same kind of wallop in each fist, but he more than makes up for it by being elusive, making his opponents miss him, while making them pay with fast counter shots each time they close in and try to land. Malignaggi has little power to speak of, to be frankly honest, but he is able to make up for it by landing fast shots, hitting his opponents with flurries and then moving out of range before they score with their own shots. Malignaggi does, however, have problems with high pressure fighters like Miguel Cotto and Herman Ngoudjo, both of whom were able to use heavy pressure in their bouts with Malignaggi to nail him repeatedly despite his constant movement that he used in the fights.
In the case of the Cotto bout, Malignaggi was knocked down in the 2nd round, and received a broken cheekbone and eye socket from the crushing shots from Cotto.
Unlike most of Malignaggi’sa other opponents, Cotto continued to come forward pressuring Malignaggi constantly, not letting him get any rest from the heavy pressure. In the end, Cotto completely dominated Malignaggi, battering him in every round of the fight. Still, it was a fight that increased Malignaggi’s worth as a fighter given the fact that he stood up to Cotto, not backing down for an instant, and hitting him on frequent occasions with light, pesky shots. The punches did little to slow Cotto down, for he was like Goliath against a small David, yet it was an interesting fight because of Malignaggi’s refusal to back down, even when his face was reduced to a bloody and swollen mess by the power shots of Cotto. The fight should have been stopped, however, either by the referee or by Malignaggi’s corner, for it did him no good to take such a savage beating when he had almost zero chance of coming back from behind and scoring a knockout.
In Malignaggi’s recent fight with Ngoudjo, he used the same heavy pressure to give Malignaggi all kinds of problems throughout the fight. Indeed, it appeared that Ngoudjo won the fight by at least a couple of rounds, but given the fact that he was the challenger, and was fighting on the East coast where Malignaggi lives, it wasn’t much of a surprise to see him get the nod over Ngoudjo. However, most people that saw the fight are in agreement that Ngoudjo won the fight.
The fight should be a good lesson for Malignaggi, who looked to be trying to prove a point somehow, perhaps wanting to show that he can stand and trade with his opponents without running like he usually does in his fights. As it turns out, it didn’t work out well for Malignaggi, as he got hit often and seemed to come out the loser on most exchanges.
N’dou, no doubt, will likely have seen the Ngoudjo fight and will attempt to pressure Malignaggi in the same manner. However, N’dou is going to have to time Malignaggi better, for he’s not as fast as Ngoudjo and will have to work on cutting off the ring and trapping him in order to score.
Beyond this Saturday’s bout, if Malignaggi can get by N’dou in one piece, there’s a good chance that Malignaggi will be fighting Ricky Hatton later on this year. The fight will likely take place in Manchester, England, where Hatton would be surrounded by his English fans, though it probably really doesn’t matter where the fight takes place. It would be a very tough fight for Malignaggi due to Hatton’s heavy pressure style of fighting, which mimics Cotto’s style of attack in many ways.