By Dan Ambrose: 36-year-old former IBF lightweight champion Paul Spadafora (46-0-1, 19 KO’s) came back from a two year absence last night to defeat journeyman Humberto Toledo (41-8-2, 25 KO’s) by an eight round unanimous decision. Spadafora now says he wants to take on either WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia or WBA World welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi.
The chances of either of those fights happening are pretty much zero at this point. Spadafora needs to stay out of trouble and get busy with his career. It’s nice that he’s still unbeaten, the former IBF lightweight champion has been out of the loop for so long that few boxing fans outside of the older ones remember who he is. The newer boxing fans have never seen him fight, because Spadafora hasn’t been in any big fights since 2003 when he fought to a 12 round draw against Leonard Dorin. That’s 9 years, and way too much time in between important fights for Spadafora to be getting a title shot after only one fight back.
Spadafora held the IBF lightweight title from 1999 to 2003. Never a big puncher, Spadafora struggled badly against Angel Manfredy, barely beating him by a 12 round decision in March 2002. And there was his fight against Dorin which ended in a draw.
Those two fights were the biggest bouts of Spadafora’s career, and they really weren’t really dangerous guys and yet Spadafora struggled badly against them. Dorin turned around and was easily beaten by Arturo Gatti by a 2nd round knockout in July 2004, while Mandredy had already been destroyed by Floyd Mayweather Jr. by a 2nd round TKO in 1998.
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