A Texas Size Mugging.

Being a native to Texas truly separates you from the rest of the world.  You are born with an extremely strong sense of pride for your native land and its people.  Therefore, when ever Juan “The Baby Bull” Diaz stepped into the ring the entire Lone Star State would cheer him on.  On August 22, 2009, Diaz as usual put on a top tier performance for his home time crowd.  From bell to bell, Diaz never stopped pushing forward as well as the pace of the match.  Diaz landed very clean punches whenever he caught Malignaggi standing still.  This however, is not the whole story.  Although Diaz was a great showman as always Paulie “The Magic Man” Malignaggi put on a masterful performance.  Malignaggi completely controlled the fight from the opening round to the final round.  Malignaggi’s speed seemed to mystify Diaz as the “Baby Bull” was left charging after Malignaggi.  Even with several shots from Diaz landing flush, Malignaggi simply clinched and continued the pugilist shuffle dancing around the tiny ring and constantly landed a lighting fast jab that battered a cut over Diaz’ left eye.

            Malignaggi warned the press and watching world of the possibility of a rigged fight and to add on the Friday before the fight Roy Jones Jr. whispered sentiments of this on the Calvin Murphy show as he argued with Bernard Hopkins.  Jones said that fighting Hopkins now would require him to have to hop through many hoops.  Like “meeting at an odd weight, using certain gloves, and the infamous Golden boy judges.”  So when Malignaggi stated before the fight that he was worried about the judges, especially Gale Van Hoy and Raul Caiz, I could only think of what Jones said the Friday before the fight.  Upon seeing the outcome of the fight, I was first shocked at the name of the victor then at how one-sided the scores were (118-110, 116-112, and 115-113).

            I know I would love Juan Diaz to win whenever I see him fight.  However, I would rather him get completely knocked out than to win like this.  What took place on Saturday is a real reminder of how crooked boxing can be.  It seemed as though it was the 1930’s and the fix was in. Some type of regulating body desperately needs to step in and clean things up or true boxing fans will constantly be robbed of the “Sweet Science” experience.