interview about paulie and coming back next month
For some, it comes after a brush with death. For others, the moment is less about mortality yet changes their lives nevertheless.
Paulie Malignaggi’s moment was a terrifying one, a loss in the boxing ring that left him concussed and hospitalized. That outcome and aftermath had him reconsidering something that had long been his career but which had truly become his life’s work.
He started boxing at 16, turned pro at 20, won two world titles, headlined in main events on major broadcasts, and shared the ring with some of the stars of his generation. More than half his life had been spent with gauze and tape and gloves on his hands, with other men seeking to hurt him, and with him using a mix of speed, skill, technique and guile to win.
But at that moment, he was 33 years old and considering retirement.
Malignaggi had never been a quitter. Not when the string of hand injuries kept taking him away from the sport he loved. The damage deprived him of the tools of his trade, and the threat for further harm always lingered. He had not quit in 2006 when Miguel Cotto fractured Malignaggi’s orbital bone, as the swelling disfigured his face and with Cotto still coming at him with hard shots. Malignaggi had protested when trainer Buddy McGirt stopped his fight with Ricky Hatton in 2008. He didn’t want the fight to end that way, even with the lead on the scorecard insurmountable and despite the potential for further punishment.
He always wanted to continue with his career after each loss, a few of them decisive defeats, a few of them demoralizing thanks to debatable or detestable scorecards.
But he had never been hurt like in his loss to Shawn Porter in April 2014, a four-round beatdown in which Porter swarmed Malignaggi, then stunned him, then dropped him, then finished him.
The flurry was furious from Porter and frightening for those watching. Malignaggi’s head snapped back and then forward again after Porter landed a hard looping right hand. Malignaggi tried to hold on, his back against the ropes, leaning down and forward in an attempt to wrap his arms around Porter’s hips. Porter’s arms remained free, though, and he swiveled with more punches. A couple of them cuffed the side of Malignaggi’s head. But then a right hand caught Malignaggi’s chin flush. A left hook crashed onto Malignaggi’s ear. Malignaggi began to go down but was caught in the ropes. One more right hand hit and Malignaggi crumpled to the canvas. The fight was over.
“The thing is I'm pretty durable and a sturdy guy. I’m a guy that no one can say doesn't take a good punch and I’m a guy that does take a good punch. What surprised me was that he was incredibly strong. Every shot that he hit me with hurt me,” Malignaggi said just days later, speaking with boxing reporter Lem Satterfield for an article on RingTV.com.
“This is a guy who hadn’t had a knockout in two years. This is a guy that wasn’t somebody that really had that killer reputation,” Malignaggi said. He soon added: “I didn’t expect that from Porter. I didn’t expect the power that would hurt me like that. I’ve been in with some of the best fighters in the world, so I know when a fighter is strong and I know how to deal with it. But I couldn’t deal with the power.”
Malignaggi had also been working as an on-air analyst for Showtime, but he missed the broadcast a week after the Porter fight, still recuperating from his injuries. And while he soon returned, it took much, much longer for the damage to disappear.
Next month, more than 13 months after his last bout, Malignaggi will begin his comeback. He’s fighting Danny O’Connor in the opening bout of a May 29 broadcast on Spike TV.
Even before that news came out last week, Malignaggi, who is now 34, had said he would fight again. But that wasn’t always the way he felt during the year between the Porter loss and the announcement of his return. He went from concussion to concession, then changed course and went from craving to comeback.
“The first few months after the Porter loss, I was like, ‘I’m glad I’m done, man,’ ” Malignaggi told me earlier this month, speaking 11 days before the O’Connor match was made official.
He woke up every morning with nausea. “I felt like I was pregnant,” he said. It seemed as if he needed to shake cobwebs out of his head before his day could begin. And even then, there would be bad headaches that came unexpectedly.
He would sit ringside during broadcasts and see a heated exchange between fighters. “Better these guys than me,” he would think. “I’m glad I’m not there.” The restlessness he felt in the past while sidelined with hand injuries wasn’t there now. There was no rush to return.
“I wasn’t even thinking about how long I have to take off, because I wasn’t thinking I’d be back anyway,” Malignaggi said. “Then as time went by, I kind of missed this. You start to pay less attention to the pain in the ring and more attention to the roar of the crowd and the adrenaline and just the rush of competition that you want to feel again.”
Boxing is a lifelong pursuit and an all-consuming passion. The best fighters dedicate weeks and months to training camp, cutting out distractions and pleasures, disciplining themselves for the sake of making weight and bringing themselves into peak form, as physically and mentally ready for combat as can be. It is their everything, and when it is gone there can be a feeling of nothingness.
That is why so many athletes do not adjust well to retirement. It is why so many boxers cannot stay away from the ring. This is the only way they know. It is also the best way they know to make a living.
Some fighters have that decision made for them, taking injuries or beatings so severe that commissions will not license them, or promoters and networks no longer wish to feature them. That is particularly true for star fighters who are unwilling to compete on smaller shows and for lesser paychecks. It is primarily the lesser fighters or fiscally destitute who are somehow allowed to continue to take beatings.
Malignaggi hadn’t suffered a streak of damaging defeats, but he’d been hurt badly enough that he was debating whether a return was worth it. He thought back to Javier Jauregui, a former lightweight titleholder who was 40 years old when he died of a stroke at the end of 2013.
“Sometimes I think, ‘Does that [damage] stay with you later on? That kind of made me scared a little bit,” Malignaggi said. But in the end, he said, “If you’re not living a certain way, you’re basically dead anyway. I’m alive, so I want to live. I want to feel the rushes and I want to feel being alive and going for the gusto and going for big things, and feeling the excitement of things like competition. I’m alive. I’m not dead. I’d still rather enjoy it.”
He began to recognize he was recovering while playing soccer with friends. He could head the ball and not be bothered by doing so. Then he started sparring again. He felt fine, though he also admits that boxers can base their decisions on one good day of sparring after five bad days. Your mind plays tricks on you, he said, convincing you that all you need to do is have a good day like that come fight night.
Still, Malignaggi does have a good gig with Showtime, will work some of the Premier Boxing Champions shows on other networks, and even on occasion has a role with foreign broadcasts of various fights. He doesn’t need the money.
“It’s not always about money why you do something,” Malignaggi said. “I was fighting in the amateurs for free and I loved it. Obviously I’m not fighting for free [now]. You feel a need to feel tested. Broadcasting is a great job and I have a lot of fun doing it. It doesn’t test me the same way. I don’t think anything will ever test you like combat. … There’s always people that are going to be better than you, that are going to give you trouble, that the public might think are better than you, but you might not want to think so, and you want to just test yourself out there.”
Much of his career has been that way, particularly once he moved toward the higher levels of competition. Malignaggi has few knockouts on his record. He’s needed to box well to win, making his opponents miss, sitting down on enough of his shots to earn their respect, and throwing with enough volume to earn points on the scorecards. When he moved from the 140-pound division up to welterweight, and as his reflexes began to slow, Malignaggi showed that he could make his opponents uncomfortable by walking them down and making them fight going backward.
It was an intelligent tactic, though it also meant he was in more danger of being hit. It is what he was seeking to do before Porter landed the shots that changed the course of their fight.
O’Connor won’t be much of a test in terms of the kind of power Malignaggi can still take. He doesn’t carry much pop. They’re not at all mirror images, given that Malignaggi held world titles at junior welterweight and welterweight while O’Connor has never come anywhere close. But Malignaggi’s record includes 33 wins with seven by way of knockout or technical knockout. O’Connor’s ledger shows 25 wins, with nine KOs or TKOS, and two losses.
It’s clearly meant to be the beginning of something for Malignaggi. He doesn’t know how it’ll end, however. Or when.
“I don’t know if I have a long-term goal in terms of wanting to win a certain fight or wanting to win another world title,” Malignaggi said. “Obviously I’d love to win another world title. [Being a] three-time world champion gives me a good push to possibly make the Hall of Fame. I don’t know if what I did now will do that. One more world title will be nice. I don’t know how that will be possible if [Floyd] Mayweather and [Manny] Pacquiao are going to lock up three of the four world titles.”
Mayweather and Pacquiao fight in a unification bout this coming weekend. The fourth title presently belongs to Kell Brook, who won a decision over Porter last year.
“Sometimes I think about it and I say, like, ‘One more year,’ ” Malignaggi said. “And then I think about it: If at the end of the year I’m on the verge of getting a big fight, I’m not going to stop. You don’t know when for sure.”
Malignaggi recalled that his manager, Anthony Catanzaro, knew it was time to wind down his semi-pro soccer career when younger players began to take his spots. He didn’t want to sit on the bench and began to compete in lower divisions of play.
“That’s a team sport,” Malignaggi said. “In boxing, I don’t know. … I don’t have the answer. I’m not going to do this for long, but I want to experience it a little more. The goal is just be in big fights and big moments.”
He’s with the right team for attaining that goal. Malignaggi is advised by Al Haymon, whose roster includes more than 150 fighters and whose Premier Boxing Champions is a high-profile venture being featured on major networks and in front of larger audiences than usually view the sport. Haymon also has numerous fighters in Malignaggi’s division.
Malignaggi also has what he’s done in the past. He just doesn’t want that to be all.
“I think when my career’s over, years from now, whether I’ve won or lost these big fights, at least I’ll be able to say I was in the ring with those guys,” he said. “When people talk about great fighters, I got to share a night with that guy in front of a big crowd, and it was really cool. Whether I won the fight or lost the fight, I had some cool experiences.
“I want to have maybe a little more.”
NOTE: Full video of the insightful interview with Malignaggi that led to this article can be seen at http://bit.ly/pauliecomeback
@ Dan Rafael saying Wlad completely dominated Jennings that's the top story on Boxing ESPN today. The fight kind of reminds me of Sergio Martinez's fight with Martin Murray maybe not 100% the same but it just does.
lately. may 2nd might knock this shyt out for good
