By Eric Thomas: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer made his own comments about the back and forth talk between Juan Diaz and Paulie Malignaggi, saying “Let the facts be the facts, Juan Diaz won the first fight.” Schaefer represents Diaz, who won by a controversial 12 round unanimous decision over Paulie Malignaggi on September 22nd, in a fight that took place in Diaz’s home town of Houston, Texas.
It seems as if Golden Boy wants to get a bigger slice of the pie in a rematch for their fighter Diaz, even though large portions of the boxing world feel that Diaz lost the fight. It doesn’t look like Diaz and Malignaggi are going to fight now, because Diaz is already mentioning other opponents like Juan Manuel Marquez, Robert Guerrero, Ricky Hatton, Joan Guzman and Ali Funeka as potential opponents to fight in the future.
Frankly, I think Diaz, the way he looked against Malignaggi, would lose to all of them. He might as well go after those guys if it brings him more money than a rematch with Malignaggi, because I think Diaz is starting to show signs of fading as a fighter.
A rematch with Malignaggi would probably not be a wise move for Diaz to take, because Malignaggi gave him fits last time with his movement and counter punching ability. There’s no shame in Diaz wanting to take on a different fighter with more of a name than Malignaggi because who knows how much longer Diaz will continue to fight. He really doesn’t belong being put in with light welterweights anyway, because he seems undersized for the weight class and would be better off facing other lightweights like himself.
Marquez would be a good fight, but I doubt Marquez would be interested in fighting Marquez again because he already knocked him out. Fighting him again would be needless at this point. Marquez should go after Guerrero or Edwin Valero, two fighters with a lot of power that he could get a good payday against, even if he does end up getting knocked out by both of them.
A fight against Malignaggi isn’t that big of a deal, because Malignaggi isn’t considered to be the cream of the crop in the light welterweight division right now. It is worrisome that Diaz struggled so badly against a fighter like Malignaggi, because it showed that Diaz isn’t equipped to compete against good light welterweights. Malignaggi is a good fighter, but not in the class of Timothy Bradley, Devon Alexander, Marcos Maidana or Victor Ortiz in my view.
And this is why Diaz needs to take off whatever baby fat that he put on recently and go back down to the lightweight division where he has a better chance of being relevant. I don’t know if he has the talent anymore to be a champion, but he’s at least good enough to be a top contender near the head of the pack, which is more than what I can say about him as a light welterweight.