By Jim Dower: Former lightweight champion Juan Diaz (35-2, 17 KO’s) has reportedly turned down a rematch with Paulie Malignaggi (26-3, 5 KO’s), according to latest news in the boxing world. Apparently, Diaz, 26, has turned down a deal set up by his promoter Golden Boy Promotions to fight Malignaggi in a badly needed rematch of their controversial bout that took place on August 22nd, which ended with Diaz winning by a 12 round decision in his home town of Houston, Texas.

What made the decision so strange was that boxing viewers who saw the fight on HBO pretty in unison thought that Malignaggi had won the fight. The outcome came to be seen as a home town decision win for Diaz. What made the fight look even worse was that one of the judges scored the bout 118-110 for Diaz, a score that would indicate that he saw it as a one-sided victory despite the bout appearing to be a closely contested fight.

After Diaz’s promotional team set up a rematch with Malignaggi’s promoter Lou Dibella, it was thought that Diaz would turn around and take the fight. However, it looks as if Diaz and his manager weren’t happy with the deal that their promoter, Golden Boy, had set up for Diaz for the rematch.

As such, they rejected it. As of now, the fight appears dead in the water unless some kind of agreement can be made between Malignaggi’s promoter and Golden Boy for a deal that Diaz and his manager like. HBO reportedly wanted the fight, and had paid the license fee for the rights of the bout, which they were planning to show on December 12th of this year.

It’s unclear whether the decision to decline the rematch was Diaz’s decision or his manager Willie Savannah. Whatever the case, Malignaggi isn’t happy with Diaz’s decision to decline the fight and thinks that Diaz should have spoke up about it to his manager to make the fight happen. Malignaggi said “Willie doesn’t want to do a rematch because they can’t screw me the second time around.”

Diaz is interested in a rematch with Juan Manuel Marquez, a fighter that knocked Diaz out in the 9th round on February 28th of this year. Malignaggi thinks Marquez will beat Diaz again if they fight, and knock him out once more. Malignaggi doesn’t intend on sitting around and waiting for Diaz to change his mind about fighting him and plans on moving forward with his career, maybe even trying to line up a fight with Marquez himself if Diaz doesn’t have a change of heart about a fight.

It does seem rather disappointing that Diaz doesn’t want to take the fight with Malignaggi, because their fight was controversial because Diaz appeared to lose the fight by most accounts. I personally had Malignaggi winning by two rounds.

A case can be made that it could have been a draw if you were to focus on Diaz’s harder shots, but I can’t see Diaz winning the fight because he struggled in the second half of the fight and looked to be getting dominated in the last four rounds of the fight.