By Richard McManus

Every once in a while a fighter comes along that captures the imagination of not only the hardcore fight fan but also the general boxing public and sometimes even the general sports fan. 

These fighters are extremely rare. 

Based on the self-promotion Paulie Malignaggi has been doing, he seems to think

he can be one of those fighters.  And he may be right. 

Paulie Malignaggi is a 140-pound hotshot hailing from Brooklyn, New York.  He boasts an excellent record of 21-0 and has great hand speed, slick footwork and great hair.  He could be the package.  He talks a great game and so far he’s been able to backup his tough talk and that bodes well, at least for now. 

His biggest fights thus far have been a 10-round decision win over Donald Camarena and a 10-round decision win over Rocky Martinez and he’s crept into the boxing consciousness through a couple of appearances on Showtime and a recent appearance headlining a Friday Night Fights card on ESPN2. 

Paulie possesses another skill, one that can’t be taught.  But it’s one that is a necessary part of the arsenal of any unabashed self-promoter.  And that is that he speaks of himself in the 3rd person.  Example: “Fan’s are gonna get ta know Paulie Malignaggi,” said Paulie Malignaggi. 

Fight fans have seen his type before and we love to talk about them.  We love to see them fight too.  Some of us want to see them win and some of us want to see them get knocked out. 

There are some other fighters of recent memory that have forged similar ground attempting to combine flash, skill and self-promotion.  Or course, the first fighter that comes to mind is Zab Judah.  The comparisons are obvious.  Both are blessed with the speed and reflexes of an alley cat.  They love to talk about themselves and they both hail from Brooklyn.   

However, Judah hits with above average power and has been known to put an opponent on the canvas now and then.  He’s even been known to knock out a guy or two.  Paulie appears to be somewhat feather fisted with only 5 knockouts in 21 professional victories.  What makes it even more notable is that Paulie has only 2 knockouts in his last 16 fights.  At the same point in his career Judah had 15 knockouts. 

Interestingly Malignaggi has been quoted saying that he plans to “chin check” Miguel Cotto.  A little too much of that talk and Paulie might be “gravity checked” by Miguel Cotto and the laws of physics.  But before judgment should be passed, I’ll let the two of them settle it in the ring.  Malignaggi deserves every chance to prove himself.

Naseem Hamed was another master of self-promotion.  Hamed was a master at it, calling out everybody he could think of including Oscar de la Hoya, and even making the ridiculous prediction, through his promoter Frank Warren, that he could someday capture multiple belts in multiple weight divisions including but not limited to the Super Middleweight belt.  As silly as that sounds now, Hamed was dead serious about it back in 1998. 

In 1996, when Hamed was 21-0 he had 19 knockouts and was on the cusp of superstardom a full year and a half away from his legendary fight with Kevin Kelley. 

The primary difference between Hamed and Malignaggi however, is that Hamed hit with incredible power for a featherweight and had 19 knockouts after 21 professional fights.  Hamed cracked like a welterweight.  Malignaggi, a junior welterweight, seems to crack like a flyweight.  Paulie doesn’t crack eggs, but that’s fine because as we know “speed kills” and Paulie has lots of it.  He has to, however, be able to keep his opponents honest and that’s where the soft-punching style might become a little bit of a problem.

And then there is Malignaggi’s fellow Italian-American Paul Spadafora.  While Spadafora didn’t really speak of himself in the 3rd person or engage in the sweet science of self-promotion he did win fights with sheer boxing skill and very seldom “chin checked” his opponents.  So in those respects the comparison might hold a little water.

Spadafora didn’t have much of a punch but was an excellent boxer with a good chin and good ring instincts.  Paulie has fought somewhat tougher opposition than Spadafora did after 21 professional fights and Spadafora didn’t really burst into the general boxing consciousness until his 27th pro fight when he scored a one-sided decision win against Israel “Pito” Cardona. 

Spadafora ended his career with an undefeated (thanks to a few strategically placed hometown decisions) record of 38-0-1, 15 KOs.

Another dangerous, and luckily for Paulie, not inevitable comparison that hasn’t really been made by anybody but I’ll make it here just for the heck of it is with Hector Camacho Jr.  Macho Jr. was 21-0 in 1999 and had racked up the ungodly total of 12 knockouts. Paulie would have to, at the rate he’s going, compete in 50 professional fights before he scored his 12th KO.  In other words, it’s not likely to happen.  But back to Macho Jr..

He was a relatively protected fighter who ended up retiring early (and that’s putting it nicely) in his fight with Jesse James Leija in 2002.  After deciding to just stop fighting after the 5th round, Camacho hasn’t really been heard from since although he has continued to plug away, trying to get back into the public spotlight with several wins over the last few years. 

To Paulie’s credit he seems to be cut from a different cloth than Macho Jr.. He doesn’t look like the kind of guy that would just give up. 

Malignaggi and fighters like him keep the sport interesting for the general public.  Whether people watch Paulie’s fights because they want to see him get knocked out or because they want to see him give his opponent the boxing lesson of a lifetime the fact of the matter is that people will watch him. 

Now the political decision by Bob Arum to put the Malignaggi-Cotto fight on Pay Per View is a completely different story for another time.   

Contact Richard at rmcm12@hotmail.com