By Karl E. H. Seigfried – Saturday night, boxing royalty came to Chicago once more, as Bernard Hopkins, Lennox Lewis, and Thomas Hearns all appeared at the UIC Pavilion for the rematch between Juan Diaz and Paulie Malignaggi. The August 2009 win by Diaz was hotly disputed (at least by those with the last name Malignaggi), and the repeat of their NABO Junior Welterweight title fight was eagerly anticipated. Riotous cheering (and a beaming Lou DiBella) greeted the entrance of Brooklyn’s Malignaggi as one of his crew members waved both Italian and US flags. An Applause-O-Meter would have been needed to see if his reception was actually louder than the deafening shouting that was heard as Houston-based Diaz entered.
Despite a mere one-inch difference in height, Malignaggi looked much taller than Diaz, and his lanky jab was pumping into the Texan’s face from the very start of the first round. The Brooklyn fighter clowningly cupped his ear to encourage the chants of “Paulie! Paulie!” but they were drowned out by the answering “Diaz! Diaz!” as the bell rang to end the first. Diaz seemed to have trouble getting inside Malignaggi’s lanky reach, and all three judges awarded the round to Malignaggi. Paulie’s jab was a major factor throughout the fight; he threw 480, as opposed to 308 by Diaz..
In the second, Diaz blasted Malignaggi up against the ropes with a series of quick shots to the body. The New Yorker quickly slipped out and moved the action back to the center of the ring, where he tauntingly stuck his face out as a target and got Diaz to flinch by pretending to lunge in.
During the third, it was announced to Press Row that Diaz had been cut by a punch. Malignaggi was discombobulated by a Diaz flurry, but still found time to make mocking faces as he was blown back. He then scored with a nice one-two combination, but got tagged a couple of times at round’s end as Diaz came on strongly.
Malignaggi started the fourth by landing a series of hard jabs, but the momentum of the round continually shifted back and forth, with neither fighter able to establish clear dominance.
Diaz briefly had Malignaggi in a neutral corner at the start of the fifth, then tagged Paulie with a series of beautiful power shots on the other side of the ring, then yet more in the middle. Paulie surged back, and Diaz’s attack came to a sudden halt as Malignaggi counterattacked, laughing and nodding. Diaz finally gave Malignaggi a nod of his own after a back-and-forth exchange towards the end of the round. This was the first round that the judges unanimously awarded Diaz; the first four rounds were all given to Malignaggi.
More trading of single shots started the sixth round, but Diaz quickly came on, forcing Malignaggi to back up and even jump away. Chants of “Paulie sucks!” can’t have done anything to encourage the Brooklyn fighter, but they clearly spurred him on, because he landed a right that clearly hurt Diaz. After the fight, Malignaggi said, “I need noise, I don’t care what it is.”
Rather than finish off the temporarily dazed fighter, Malignaggi windmilled his right arm like a cartoon boxer from the 1920s, grinned like a Cheshire Cat, and waddled like a duck with his hands behind his back. This led to incredulous cries from audience and press, as it seemed Malignaggi had thrown away his big chance for an early finish. At the post-fight press conference, Paulie said, “Maybe I gotta clown a little less.” Lou DiBella immediately grabbed the one working microphone away from the fighter and said, “He definitely has to clown a little less.”
In the seventh, Malignaggi tagged Diaz with a left hook, then bent in the middle like a rubber band to avoid a hook to the body from the Texan. Throughout the round, Diaz scored points for aggression and generalship, Malignaggi for acrobatics and showmanship (or he would have, if such points were given in boxing).
Cartoonishly winding up his right hand in the eighth, Malignaggi’s clowning caused him to receive a series of hard Diaz body shots as he was pinned in the blue corner. Shortly after, he was given a few seconds to recover from a blow below the belt after making a great show of pain. When the audience boo’d the theatrics, he gave an arms-high “Whassup?” to the crowd, which brought peals of laughter. Ever-serious Diaz subsequently had Malignaggi once more on the ropes, unleashing a barrage from all angles. Seconds later, Paulie replied with his own onslaught in the center of the ring, raining down a furious flurry. Diaz yet again got Malignaggi on the ropes and let his hands go before the bell, winning the round on the scorecards of all three judges.
A little ways into the ninth, Malignaggi’s jab started to repeatedly find its mark. After the fight, Paulie said, “I didn’t throw as many right hands as I would have liked to, but the jab was working real well.” By mid-round, blood could be seen smearing down the left side of Diaz’s face. This was the first round the judges disagreed on, with two for Malignaggi and one for Diaz.
The tenth round started with a shove from Malignaggi. Diaz tagged Malignaggi with a right, but was given a standing count when his glove touched the canvas after a left and a cuffing right from Malignaggi. As Paulie had failed to follow up on his advantage in the sixth, this was the only 10-8 round of the match.
As if trying to win the Max Baer Award, Paulie started conversing with the HBO airstaff after eating a series of shots at the start of the eleventh. He later explained that he had been yelling at the CompuBox staff to ignore the left hooks from Diaz: “Don’t count those! I blocked those!” Noticing a puzzled look on HBO announcer Max Kellerman’s face, he felt a need to lean over and explain the situation, despite the fact that his nemesis was still coming at him guns a-blazin’. A nice right from Diaz sent a shower of sweat flying from Malignaggi’s cornrow-braided head, and the round closed after a pretty one-two from Paulie, blood streaking down the face of Diaz. This was the only other round the judges disagreed on, with two for Diaz and one for Malignaggi.
The final round began with Diaz looking angry, focused, and going for broke. Malignaggi received a warning for throwing his elbow, then everything exploded. Diaz landed a stinging right to the head of Malignaggi, who immediately himself landed hard upstairs. Diaz pounded Paulie’s head in ring center, following up with a series of hard, hard body shots. The crowd was on its feet and screaming as both fighters threw fast and furious, exchanging nonstop blows at the ringing of the final bell. Paulie later said, “In round twelve, I had goosebumps while I was trading with him.” Diaz swept the round on all scorecards.
All three judges scored the fight 116-111 for Paulie Malignaggi, now NABO Junior Welterweight Champion (for what that’s worth). Proving that he can be as much a sore loser as Malignaggi was after the first fight, Diaz stormed out of the ring as soon as the result was announced. The Texan declined to show up for the post-fight press conference, the cut being the excuse. Golden Boy’s Bernard Hopkins didn’t appear either, but Antonio Diaz did show up with his own cut (which actually stopped his fight, as detailed below), so it all seemed more about pouting than anything else.
DiBella remarked, “You saw tonight maybe the best fight of [Paulie’s] career. I think this was the best Paulie Malignaggi I’ve ever seen.” Paulie himself said, “Juan fought a good fight. I prepared well. Nobody thought I had anything left. I feel a little bit vindicated. I felt I was a better fighter than Juan. He never got as aggressive as he did in the first fight.” When asked about his future plans, he said, “I want Ricky Hatton again. As bad as he beat me, I had nothing left in that fight. That’s the fight I want. I’ll fight Ricky in England. I’m gonna get better.”
Despite Paulie’s desires, it was also announced that Golden Boy has a verbal agreement matching Marquez and Hatton. Malignaggi then mentioned Amir Khan as another potential opponent, to which DiBella said, “We’re available!” Paulie summed up by saying, “I got a couple of years left, at least two or three years. I don’t want boxing to retire me. I want to retire from boxing.”
The match-up of California-based welterweights Victor Ortiz and Antonio Diaz immediately preceding the main event started slow, but quickly heated into a fascinating contest. Southpaw Ortiz entered with a record of 24-2-1 (19), Diaz with 45-5-1 (27). The first round drew boos from the audience; there was plenty of weaving and feinting, but very little throwing and landing. In the second, Ortiz unleashed the first meaningful flurry of the fight, but it was an isolated effort. Chants of “Ortiz! Ortiz!” were heard in the third. Referee Gerald Scott scored a false knockdown when he accidentally pushed Ortiz to the canvas as he separated the fighters, but this was shortly followed by a real knockdown as Diaz crumpled under a right hook. Ortiz came on strong after his opponent rose, with Diaz looking dazed before recovering and scoring with a left. Diaz landed some shocking head shots early in the fifth, but was showing a cut above his left eye by round’s end. Midway through the sixth, Referee Scott called a timeout for the ringside doctor to examine the cut. The fight was allowed to continue, and Diaz promptly landed a thudding right to Ortiz’s head. Ortiz responded shortly after with a strong one-two combination from his lefty stance, then landed an “ooh”-inducing right just before the bell rang. The exciting fight ended anticlimactically when Ortiz was awarded a TKO before the start of the seventh, due to the severity of his opponent’s cut.
Both fighters appeared at the post-fight press conference. Ortiz said, “I just stuck to my game plan. We just hung in there and made sure we didn’t overdo with the former champion. He’s definitely dangerous.” Diaz, as he was walking out of the conference, stopped to talk to a journalist next to me and said, “I’m an older fighter, so I start later. I was starting to put pressure on him, then the cut happened and messed it all up.” No offense to the valiant and talented Diaz, but he was trailing Ortiz at the time of the stoppage with scores of 60-53 and 59-54 (twice). Two judges had him winning the fourth, but they all agreed he had lost every other round.
In a 10-round middleweight bout, Chicago-based Luciano Perez (originally from Mexico), entering at 17-9-1 (15), faced Cuban southpaw Erislandy Lara, coming in undefeated with a record of 8-0 (5). In the first round, Perez was staggered with a lead left, and seemed heavy and slow compared to the sleek and fast fighter from Cuba. Between his own quick attacks, Lara merely went into a shell and waited out the assaults thrown by Perez. Perez was continually open to jabs in the second, and was warned for both hitting low and behind the head. In the third, Perez received second warnings for both infractions, even as he continued to be hit with jabs and lead rights. His punches clearly wandered low because there was nowhere else for them to land when Lara went behind his tight and impregnable guard. Both fighters looked tired at the end of the fourth—Perez from repeated head shots, and Lara from the relentless body attack by the Chicagoan. In the fifth round, Perez almost went through the ropes from a shove before eating a succession of jabs and rights, and was clearly shaken in the sixth by a left received while backed up in a neutral corner.
The eighth continued the pattern of body attacks by Perez and head shots by Lara, including a wickedly resounding right by the Cuban. Perez showed incredible will in the ninth, continuously coming forward, even as his battered and bloody face showed the results of the blows he had received throughout the match. The damage Lara endured was not as clearly visible, but the relentless body-punching by Perez can’t have done Lara’s innards any good. At the end of the fight, Lara received a unanimous decision of 100-90 and 99-91 (twice), but Perez received the respect of the crowd for his toughness and resiliency.
In the only junior lightweight fight of the long card, Brooklyn’s Argenis Mendez (originally from the Dominican Republic) faced Kenya’s Morris Chule. Mendez, a 2004 Olympian, landed a perfect right on the chin during the competitive first round, and scored with a stinging left in the first few seconds of the next. In the third, Mendez landed a sweet right, shortly followed by a left. Chule finally started to come on at the end of the round, surprising Mendez with a couple of landed head shots. Mendez dominated the fourth with left hooks, landing them one after another throughout the round. In the fifth, Mendez again lead the action, snapping Chule’s head sideways with a powerful right, although he was temporarily distracted by images of himself on the Jumbotron at round’s end. Mendez glanced up at the huge screen at least seven times in the sixth round, which is a dangerous habit that his corner needs to notice and correct. In the eighth round, Chule held on several times after eating flurries, but Mendez was unable to finish his opponent off, possibly because he was too busy looking at himself on the screen. Scores of 78-74 and 80-72 (twice) awarded a unanimous decision to Mendez, now 15-1 (9). Chule falls to 7-8-1 (7).
Chicago welterweight Jimmy Herrera made his professional debut against another Chicagoan, Gustavo Palacios (originally from Mexico), who came in at 2-6 (1). In the shortest fight of the evening, Palacios was almost immediately knocked down by a flurry from Herrera, who won his first pro fight with a TKO at 0:28 of the first round.
Another junior welterweight bout featured Hylon Williams Jr of Houston, 11-0 (3) at the start of the fight, and Humberto Tapia of Tijuana, 14-11-1 (7) before the match. Williams has very fast hands, and he repeatedly tripled up the jab and moved in and out with fast combinations. In the first round, he managed to sneak in shots while defending on the ropes behind a tight guard. In the second, Williams got the better of the in-close exchanges, continuing to use his advantage in speed. He blasted back after taking a shot on the right thigh, landing a big flurry on Tapia near the end of the third. The Texan threw some amazing combinations in the fourth round, and the last ten seconds of the fifth featured a furious, close-up exchange between the two. Williams landed a straight right in the final seconds of the seventh, and went for broke at the very start of the eighth, but he was unable to sustain the surge for a noticeable amount of time. The two fighters went back and forth for the rest of the eighth, each taking turns to land a punch. Still-undefeated Williams received a unanimous decision, with all three judges awarding the 19-year-old’s speed with scores of 82-72. One of the promoters, speaking off the record to Press Row during the sixth round, lamented that, although Williams’ hand speed is unbelievable, he has no power behind it, and he continuously backs up rather than using any sort of lateral movement. The fact that Tapia seemed completely unaffected by the continuous barrage of landed punches speaks clearly to the power (or lack thereof) of Williams, who has yet to settle into a true pro style after his great success as an amateurs.
Earlier in the evening, the card’s first fight to feature a local fighter was an eight-round welterweight match between Chicago’s Germaine “Silky” Sanders, 27-7 (17), and Miami’s Randall Bailey, 39-7 (35). Sanders lost his mouthguard early in the first round and was knocked to his knees by a right in the closing moments. No knockdown was ruled when Bailey fell backwards in the second, but a right subsequently sent Sanders down on all fours. The Chicago fighter regained his feet, but was visibly wobbled by a left shortly before the end of the round. The third round featured a Bailey upstairs right and a downstairs left as Sanders had his back to the ropes. In the fourth, Sanders landed a nice jab, but ate a right for his efforts. Sanders was down again in the fifth; Bailey hit him with a hard right and followed up with a left as the Chicagoan tumbled backwards. Later in the round, Bailey also landed a great short left hook. Sanders deserves props for determination, as he came out fighting again at the opening of the seventh. He landed a short right in the middle of the round, but continued to take too many head shots. He was still competitive in the final round, as both fighters landed regularly, but received the short end of a unanimous decision. Scores of 78-71,79-70, and 77-72 were all for Bailey.
The fifth fight of the day was a battle of undefeated welterweights: Jermell Charlo of Houston, entering at 9-0 (4), and Abdon Lozano of Las Vegas (originally from Mexico), coming in at 6-0 (1). A short left by Charlo immediately put Lozano down in the opening seconds of the first round. Lozano scored with a nice jab and combination, but Charlo followed up with another stinging right; the two fighters were fighting intensely at close range as the bell sounded. The second round featured more close-range mixing, but came to an abrupt end when a perfect left hook by Charlo sent Lozano down on his back, where he was counted out at 2:11 for the first pure KO win of the evening.
Seven-time champion Thomas Hearns was in attendance to support his son Ronald, a junior middleweight coming in from Michigan with a 22-1 (17) record. Kenyan Shadrack Kipruto was staggered backwards in the second round by a right and backed up by a jab. Another powerful right from Hearns made Kipruto wobble back a second time, and a punch to the back of the head sent him sprawling shortly before the bell. Hearns’ jab repeatedly had Kipruto backing up in the third, and the African ate another big right just before the 10-second warning. Despite holding his left down around knee-level, Hearns has a jab that seemed like it couldn’t miss throughout the fourth. The fifth featured a slamming hard right and left hook from Hearns, and his relentless jabs began to take a cumulative toll on Kipruto. A sizzling Hearns right sent Kipruto down in the sixth, and referee Pete Podgorski waved it off the instant the Kenyan fighter’s rear hit the canvas, awarding “The Chosen One” a TKO win at 2:33 and dropping Kipruto’s record to 10-12 (7).
The third fight was a four-rounder of young junior welterweights: Omar Figueroa of Texas and Anthony Woods of the Bahamas. Woods came out swinging with both hands and repeatedly landed hard shots to the head. Figueroa rose up strong in the last minute and had Woods briefly holding on shortly before the bell. Both were going strong in the second, in strong contrast to the heavyweight stinker that immediately preceded (see below). Figueroa held his hands low throughout, taking way more shots from the 6-12 (3) opponent than he should have; he needs to get some defense going before he is thrown in with any real punchers. The fight was stopped at 1:46 of the second round, bringing prospect Figueroa’s record up to 8-0 (8).
The second fight was between heavyweights Dominick Guinn and Charles Davis. Veteran Guinn entered the fight with 31-6-1 (21), journeyman Davis with 19-17-2 (4). In the first round, Guinn showed very little, but did land a nice lead right. Davis scored with a one-two, then his own lead right, but seemed gun-shy throughout. In the second, Guinn seemed hesitant to commit to his shots, but Davis was still too intimidated to take advantage of the situation. The third round featured a similar dearth of commitment, with Davis landing several shots right on the beltline, and Guinn getting his jab going a bit. In the fourth, a Davis left brought a smile from Guinn. Nothing worth reporting happened in the fifth, and boos erupted during and after the sixth for two fighters who were both uninterested in trying to close with any conviction. Booing was also heard as the unanimous decision was announced; 58-56 (twice) and 60-54, all for Guinn, whose knockout record already seems a distant memory.
The first bout was between two heavyweights that were both entering their second matches. Scheduled for four rounds, it only went to the end of the first. Terry Adams (now 0-2) of Hunstville AL was “unable to continue” after the first round, and Darlington Agha of Sugar Land TX received the TKO win, bringing his record up to 2-0 (2). Adams threw wide, looping shots with both hands throughout, and no meaningful shots were landed by either fighter.