By Seth Green: In a fight that is almost surely to cause controversy, former lightweight champion Juan Diaz defeated Paulie Malignaggi by a 12-round unanimous decision tonight at the Toyota Center, in Houston, Texas. Diaz, a fighter from Houston, was out-boxed by Malignaggi from the 6th round on. Diaz looked awful in the second half of the fight, and took a beating from Malignaggi. This decision is another black eye for boxing, I hate to say it.
However, the judges saw Diaz winning, rewarding him by the scores of 118-110, 115-113 and 116-112.. It looked like a case of the hometown fighter winning the decision to me, because Diaz looked bad, and was getting drilled in the last four rounds by Malignaggi. Diaz’s face looked as if it had gone through a meat grinder afterwards, whereas Malignaggi looked relatively unmarked. Diaz was cut over his left eye in the 2nd round.
It’s hard to say where Diaz can go with this controversial victory. He appears much too small to be a factor in the light welterweight division, and if he’s having to struggle against a light puncher like Malignaggi, it probably isn’t a good sign for the future for Diaz. He might be better off moving back down to lightweight before he gets taken apart by one of the bigger, stronger light welterweights like Victor Ortiz.
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In super featherweight action, Robert Guerrero (25-1-1,17 KOs) defeated IBF super featherweight champion Malcolm Klassen (24-5-2, 14 KOs) by a 12-round decision. Guerrero faded late in the fight and looked not too impressive as he struggled in the final rounds. The judges’ scored it 117-111, 116-113, 116-112. Guerrero clinched a great deal in the second half of the fight and threw few meaningfulness punches. The fight was rather dull to watch because of all the clinching by Guerrero.
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Undefeated middleweight contender Daniel Jacobs (18-0, 15 KO’s) labored to a 10-round unanimous decision against Ishe Smith (21-4, 9 KO’s). Jacobs, 22, looked unimpressive and had problems with the counter punching from Smith. The final judges’ scores were 96-93, 100-89 and 96-93. Jacobs looked very beatable tonight and I had the fight much closer than the judges scored it, giving Jacobs the victory by one round.