By Jason Kim: In a battle of fringe light welterweight contenders, Juan Diaz (35-2, 17 KO’s) defeated former International Boxing Federation light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (26-3, 5 KO’s) by a controversial 12-round unanimous decision. However, Malignaggi appeared to win the fight by at least two rounds.
At best, you could call the fight a draw if you were really reaching. The judges scored it 118-110, 115-113 and 116-112. The scores were absolutely ridiculous, especially the judge that scored the bout 118-110 for Diaz.
Malignaggi looked sensational in the opening round, jabbing and firing off combinations as he circled the slow moving Diaz. It was pure mastery by Malignaggi, because he was only hit a handful of times by Diaz in the entire round. However, near the end of the round, Malignaggi was cut on the side of his left eye by a shot from Diaz. In the 2nd round, Malignaggi looked good early on as he moved around the ring punching Diaz almost at will. However, Diaz seemed to stun Malignaggi with a big right hand around the midpoint of the round. Diaz, with the huge Houston crowd screaming bloody murder, began to tee off on Malingaggi with big power shots for the remaining minute and half of the round. It was a great round for Diaz, but unfortunately he wasn’t able to land as well as this in the subsequent round.
Diaz dominated rounds three through five with his bigger shots, mostly hooks, to the head. Malignaggi was moving nicely in each of these rounds shooting out pesky jabs and left hands, but the punches lacked the power of the big shots from Diaz. For his part, Diaz was getting out-landed by a slim margin, but the constant screaming by the Houston crowd after every punch that Diaz would throw, made it seem as if he was doing better than he was.
Diaz wobbled Malignaggi with a big left hand early in the 4th round. Malignaggi backed off and continued to jab, but he was nailed with some mighty big left hands from Diaz after he had hurt Malignaggi. Diaz was cut on the left eyebrow in the 5th round from a head butt.
Diaz fought well in the first half of the 5th, but after the head clash, Diaz seemed to lose a lot of his energy as he looked concerned. Malignaggi boxed beautifully in the 6th round, circling Diaz and nailing him with a huge assortment of jabs and left hands to the head. Diaz briefly fought well by landing a series of left hands, but Malignaggi shut him down with jabs to the head.
Diaz rebounded well in the 7th round, hitting Malignaggi with some big right hooks and left hands to the head and body. Malignaggi tried to answer back with jabs, but Diaz’s power shots cut right through them. However, Diaz pretty much faded at this point, as Malignaggi took over the fight starting in the 8th round, and dominated the remaining rounds except for the 12th.
Malignaggi’s movement and jabs were superb, as he pounded the shorter, slower Diaz in the face with his jabs repeatedly, reddening Diaz’s face. However, in the 12th round, with the fight pretty much still up in the air, Malignaggi made the mistake of taking his foot of the gas pedal and allowing Diaz to outwork him in the round. As it was, it really didn’t matter because the judges scored the fight for Diaz by a significant margin despite the Malignaggi appearing to be the winner of the bout by at least two rounds.
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