Paulie Malignaggni believes Otto Wallin’s only path to victory on Saturday night is by knocking out Anthony Joshua because they want the AJ vs. Deontay Wilder fight to take place next in March.
They’re not going to let Joshua lose to Wallin by a decision to mess that fight up, which puts Otto in a tough situation where he’s going to need to knock out Joshua (26-3, 23 KOs) if he’s to win.
Malignaggi uses the Oscar De La Hoya – Bernard Hopkins mega-fight as example of a robbery that took place leading up to that match. For fans that don’t remember.
De La Hoya fought WBO middleweight champion Felix Sturm in his fight before the Hopkins clash, and it was supposed to be a sure-thing victory for Oscar against a fighter with little power, who was mostly known for having a great jab.
Instead, Sturm boxed De La Hoya’s head off, jabbing him crazy and totally dominating the fight, appearing to win a lopsided decision. Shockingly, the judges gave De La Hoya a unanimous decision, which allowed the Oscar-Hopkins mega-fight to take place, but it tainted the contest for fans who were aware of the Sturm contest.
The problem with that is Wallin has no power and just a miserable 53% KO rate; hence, that’s why he was picked out for Joshua because he can’t knock him out, and he can’t win a decision, so he has zero chance of messing up the Joshua-Wilder fight.
That would be a shame if Joshua does win by a controversial decision, as Malignaiggi predicts, as it would create a skunk-like odor that would follow him into his fight with Wilder on March 9th.
Granted, the casual boxing fans wouldn’t be aware of AJ coming off a robbery win over Wallin, as they don’t follow the sport closely enough to know about robberies.
Hardcore fans would know, but with them, they would take it in stride, and view it as par for the course; there have been plenty of robberies throughout history, so this would be just another example.
Wallin’s only path: The Unthinkable knockout
“Absolutely [Joshua will receive credit if he blows Wallin away], but I don’t think Wallin will get the decision, even if it goes the distance,” said Paulie Malignaggi to Boxing King Media, saying that Otto Wallin has no chance of getting a decision win over Anthony Joshua on Saturday night.
“They want to make Joshua and Wilder so bad that Wallin can’t get a decision anyway. I think Wallin will have to stop Joshua in order to get a decision.”
That would be pathetic if Joshua is given a controversial decision in the same way Tyson Fury was given a questionable win in his last fight against Francis Ngannou.
It would be better for this kind of thing to be avoided if the promoters for these events choose poor opposition with no hope of winning because victory would be assured.
Fury’s team failed to realize that he’s a fat old guy, living off of his only substantive career victories over Deontay Wilder and a past-his-prime 40-year-old Wladimir Klitschko. Even with those wins, Fury got lucky with the referees not stopping two of his matches with Deontay after he was knocked out.
Echoes of past controversies
“It sort of reminds me of the Bernard Hopkins and Oscar De La Hoya when they were on the same show [on June 4, 2004] and Oscar De la Hoya had to rob [WBO middleweight champion] Felix Sturm [in Las Vegas] in order for that fight to happen.”
That was disturbing watching De La Hoya getting his face rearranged by Sturm, yet being given the decision by the Nevada judges that worked that fight. That writer had Sturm winning 11-1 in a one-sided fight against De La Hoya, who at that point in his career was a part-time fighter and just a shell of the talent he’d been during his prime.
“This kind of show reminds me of that. Hopefully, there are no weird decisions, and everybody gets deserving of their victories, but that’s always this risk when they do that kind of thing because of the opponents they have [Wallin for AJ and Joseph Parker for Deontay]” said Malignaggi.
A picked opponent and powerless underdog
“Again, it’s hard to pick against AJ because even if it was close, it would go his way,” said Malignaiggi. “It’s interesting because I want to see how much Wallin wants to go for it, probably knowing what I’m saying that he can’t get a decision. Is Wallin willing to put himself on the line in order to try and stop AJ. It should be interesting.”
Wallin can’t punch at all, there’s very little chance that Joshua can lose to him by knockout unless he keels over from exhaustion. AJ weighed in at 251 lbs, which wasn’t the smartest thing for him to do, given his long history of having cardio problems.
If Wallin can push a fast enough pace, there’s an outside chance that he’ll wear Joshua down and stop him or possibly cut him to ribbons like he did Fury, and that was another weird fight.
Wallin should have won, but it wasn’t stopped, even though Fury had one of the worst cuts this writer has ever seen. it later required 47 stitches to close. If the shoe was on the other foot, some believe the fight would have been stopped right away, giving Fury a stoppage win over a cut-up Wallin.
Joshua’s Motivation and diminished Killer Instinct:
“Joshua, when you get to that age, and you’ve got a lot of money, and you’re in the later part of your career,” said Malignaiggi. “It’s hard to get that killer, killer the way you were before. You’re still a fighter and will always be a fighter, but I don’t know. It’s hard to get that killer in you, especially when they pay you this much money for these fights.”
AJ has a net worth of $80 million, and that’s got to be next to be impossible for him to bring back the killer instinct he once had before he accumulated that massive wealth.
After Joshua faces Deontay Wilder twice in 2024, his fortune will likely be double what it is now, and be incredibly rich, making it even harder for him to bring back his lost killer instinct.
“We’ll see. I’d love to see a great show. I think the card is phenomenal. You know what’s cool? You never get big time boxing this time in the year, but this year, you got this card on the 23rd, and then you got Naoya Inoue on the 26th. It’s a cool time of year.
“Usually, boxing is done until the new year, but instead, we got a couple of shows at least,” said Malignaggi.
