So last night I checked out the Paulie Malignaggi vs. Juan Diaz fight on HBO. Now personally I have been a fan of boxing since I was a little kid, my dad enjoyed watching most sports so If it was on tv and it was sports related we where there. Growing up watching boxing I always admired the fighters and beleived that when some fighters complained they were not getting a fair shake it was just the loser crying over spilt milk. Others may look at it differently for example some people and fans love to see a brawl, no strategy just too guys in the center of the ring slugging it out till someone falls. Another set of people like to see the skilled pugilist dance around and reduce the less fleet footed foe to looking like a clumsy buffoon. But in some instances and I wont say there have been many, but in some instances there is just an outright shady element to the sport of boxing.

And that brings me back to the Paulie Malignaggi vs. Juan Diaz fight. If you have not seen it tune into HBO and check it out, both of these fighters are in that second tier of fighters guys who have big names and where nearing the top then absorbed a couple of losses to the cream of the crop. The losers of these types of fights have to take on the other 2nd tier guys and hope to get back to that title shot. So at this point there is a very big incentive to come out on top, lose and you fall out of that 2nd tier and makes it even harder to secure a title shot. Malignaggi came into this fight after a couple losses and accepted this fight against an up and comer who would get to fight in his hometown. Hometown crowds may not seem like a big deal when you are in the ring throwing and absorbing punches but it can have an amazing effect  on perception. When the crowd cheers every hit by the hometown fighter and sits motionless when there fighter is hit I think it effects the judges. Boxing would have you beleive that is just not true but it’s fights like this that tend to backup the point. Malignaggi came in saying that he was getting a raw deal before the fight seeing as how the three judges for this bout where all from Texas and in his opinion would tilt toward the hometown fighter. Now you might call it paronia but after watching the fight I have to agree. I am by far no expert on boxing but I use a simple method to stay with the scoring after each round i pick who I thought was the winner and give them the round 10-9, if the winner knocked down the other fighter then I score it 10-8, two knockdowns for the winner 10-7 and so on. So watching this fight I scored every round and came to malignaggi winning 115-113. I could understand if the hometown judges gave some of the close rounds to Diaz so I figured it could be close but the winner was announced Diaz and I was completely shocked. A short lived shock because I then noticed that one ref had scored the fight 118-111, Meaning he gave almost every round to Diaz. Sitting there in shock you had to know how big a smile I had when Malignaggi let loose with this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTnhWoFXgr0[/youtube]

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