By Scott Gilfoid: 23-year-old WBC International welterweight champion Sam Eggington (20-3, 12 KOs) had too much youth tonight in stopping 36-year-old former two division world champion Paulie Malignaggi (36-8, 7 KOs) by an 8th round knockout on Saturday night at the O2 Arena in London, England.
Eggington landed a crushing left to the body that badly hurt Malignaggi. The shot caused Malignaggi to bend over at the waist. Eggington then finished Malignaggi with a right hand to the head to put him down on the canvas face first. Malignaggi was too hurt from the body shot to get back to his feet. The fight was then halted at 1:50 of the 8th.
Malignaggi had his moments in the fight in hurting Eggington with a right hand to the head in round 6. The shot hurt Eggington badly enough to where he didn’t even try and defend himself to the flurry of head shots that Malignaggi threw afterwards. If Malignaggi had a little more punching power, he probably would have finished Eggington off. Malignaggi’s lack of power enabled Eggington to get out of the 6th round. But it looked really bad the way Eggington had his hands down by his sides and was taking shots one after another. It was surprising the referee didn’t step in to halt the fight because Eggington wasn’t even trying to block the head shots that were hitting him cleanly. It looked really bad. If I was the referee, I would have stopped the fight to protect Eggington, because he looked like a punching bag.
Where Malignaggi made a huge mistake was not jumping on Eggington in round 7 when he wasn’t fully back from being hurt in the previous round. Malignaggi should have unloaded his gas tank by going after Eggington full bore with a flurry of shots in a make or break attack. Malignaggi initially hit Eggington with three nice shots to the head at the start of the round. But instead of continuing to nail the easy to hit Eggington, Malignaggi backed off and let him take the round and resume control of the fight. It was dumb, dumb and dumb on Malignaggi’s part. If it had been me inside the ring with Eggington, they would have had to pull me off of him because I’d be hitting him nonstop with punches until one of us dropped to the canvas. Malignaggi looked like he didn’t want to risk tiring himself out by throwing too many punches. The way that Eggington had dominated the first six rounds, I think it was a huge mistake on his part by not going after British fighter.
After the fight, Malignaggi said he’s probably going to retire after this loss. He said he’ll make an announcement this week about ending his boxing career. It’s sad news for Malignaggi’s fans, but it’s perhaps for the best. He doesn’t have the power to compete against the upper rung of the 147lb division. When you get fringe level fighters like Eggington beating you, it’s a sign that you need to retire from the sport.
“I feel like I’ve got a great job at ringside,” said Malignaggi after the fight in talking about his job as an announcer. “I’ll make an official announcement this week. I probably am done. How do you rebuild at 36?”
As much as I want to give Eggington a ton of credit for his win tonight, I can’t do it. He should have been knocked out if Malignaggi had used his brain and attacked him the way he needed to in round 6. Moreover, Malignaggi is an over-the-hill fighter at this point in his boxing career. The fact that he almost knocked out Eggington kind of tells you a lot about him, doesn’t it? I can’t see Eggington beating a good welterweight that’s not a faded fighter.
Overall, it was a decent fight. The 5’11” Eggington’s huge height advantage over the 5’7” Malignaggi was a big factor in the fight. Eggington was not only bigger, but he had the punch volume to keep Malignaggi busy. The only thing that Malignaggi could do is jab and occasionally land left-right combinations like the ones that hurt Eggington in round 6. But there wasn’t enough of them from Malignaggi to make the fight competitive in the real sense.
I had Eggington up by 5 rounds to 0 going into round 6. The only round that I gave to Malignaggi was the 6th. Eggington appeared to get the better of Malignaggi in the other rounds. He was landing harder and more numerous shots than Malignaggi.
It wasn’t just youth that won the fight for Eggington. It was the size, power and work rate. Malignaggi would have had problems with Eggington even if their ages were reversed. It was just a bad size match-up for Malignaggi, who spent most of his boxing career fighting in the 140 pound division.
Surprisingly, Eggington didn’t use his reach advantage the way that he could have. He tended to crowd Malignaggi in every round, giving up his height and reach in the same way that super middleweight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. does in his fights.
Malignaggi looked in trouble in the 5th round after taking a straight right to the head that seemed to weaken his knees. Eggington landed a nice shot, but he was too sloppy and slow to follow up with anything meaningful to get the knockout.
Unbeaten WBC Silver light welterweight Ohara Davies (15-0, 12 KOs) destroyed former world title challenger Derry Mathews (38-12-2, 120 KOs) in the 3rd round. Davies, 25, knocked the 33-year-old Mathews down twice in the fight.
Davies punished Matthews with power shots in rounds 1 and 2. Mathews’ face was starting to swell up by the start of the 3rd round. Mathews wasn’t blocking anything that was coming his way. That was the main problem. Mathews was a punching bag out there tonight, and Davies had it too easy.
In the 3rd round, Davies dropped Mathews with a right hand to the head that caused him to take a knee from getting hit again. Davies then unloaded a storm of head shots that sent Mathews down for the second and final time in the round. After badly hurt Mathews got back to his feet, the referee halted the fight to keep him from taking any additional punishment.
Other boxing results on the card:
Ohara Davies TKO 3 Derry Mathews
Lee Selby TKO 9 Andoni Gago
Ted Cheeseman pts 8 Jack Sellars
David Allen KO 2 David Howe