Paulie Malignaggi: “If Chris Algieri beats Pacquiao, I guarantee you he gets the shot against Mayweather”

When it comes to the sport of boxing, few people can have the same success out of the ring as they did in it. ‘The Magic Man’ Paulie Malignaggi has already established two successful careers, one as a 2 division world champion, and the other as award winning boxing commentator, who is highly sought after to call fights from around the world.

In part 1 of my “On The Ropes” boxing radio interview with Paulie Malignaggi, I discuss with him one of his most recent boxing calls, Mayweather-Maidana II. Paulie shared his views on Mayweather’s performance and what he thinks was the biggest difference in the rematch. Malignaggi also talked about the third round that saw Mayweather briefly stunned by Maidana and what direction he thinks boxings pound for pound king will go next. Here is what Paulie Malignaggi had to say.

Jenna J: Floyd Mayweather recently got a victory over Marcos Maidana. What are your thoughts on the fight now that you’ve had some time to reflect on it?

Paulie Malignaggi: I thought Floyd had a good performance as far as following a winning gameplan. I thought Kenny Bayless has had better nights as far as being a referee. I thought Maidana should have been given a bit more of an opportunity to fight on the inside and maybe just not have been broken so quickly.

A lot of times Maidana was the one trying to work and Mayweather was the one trying to smother or even clinch — which obviously it’s gonna be part of the gameplan if you’re the boxer fighting a guy like Maidana, it’s all in the cards to do that.

Maidana has to be given a chance to fight on the inside because if you break them that fast, you’re forcing Maidana to fight only on the outside, and if Maidana is allowed to fight only on the outside, there’s a lot less fighters than Floyd Mayweather that he won’t beat. By forcing him to fight only on the outside against Floyd, Marcos never really had a chance.

Jenna J: Having seen the first and second fights, what do you think was the biggest difference in the fights?

Paulie Malignaggi: The referee. Without a doubt it was the referee. I think with ‘Chino’ being able to work a bit more inside, I think we get a very similar fight to the first fight, which is a tough fight where Floyd might pull it off close or he may not. It would be a very similar grueling, physical type of fight.

My thing is this, if Marcos is so dirty, then allow him to get on the inside and fight, if he does get too dirty, you warn him and take points from him. At that point, at least you’re taking control of the fight in a different way, you’re giving him a chance to fight the fight and giving him a chance to fight his fight but to be clean — and if he doesn’t, then he risks disqualification.

The problem is with that kind of fight, referees don’t want to take the chance to be too involved in a fight like that. If you let Marcos take the fight on the inside and he gets dirty, then you gotta get to the point where you give him warnings, you take away points, and then you’ll get some idiot boxing writer or critic saying the referee got too involved in the fight or whatnot.

You always get too many idiots out there that are gonna criticize for the wrong reasons. I think in this case, that thinking probably intimidated Kenny from even allowing the fight to even happen on the inside where it may or may not get dirty, but at the end of the day, that was Marcos Maidana’s only chance of winning the fight or having a chance to win the fight.

For Floyd Mayweather, the gameplan was an intelligent one, it wasn’t the first time a boxer fights a slugger in that way and it won’t be the last, it’s kind of the blueprint for a boxer and the way he’s gotta fight a slugger or a physical kind of guy.

Jenna J: A lot of fans talked about the shot that happened at the end of the third round, where Floyd was hurt by Maidana. If that shot had happened at the start of the round rather than the end, how do you think the fight would have turned out?

Paulie Malignaggi: Who knows, we’ll never know. Sometimes fights and life in general is just about timing. The timing of that shot landing ended up being at the end of the round and Floyd managed to get out of the round and recover and moved on to the next round and keep executing his gameplan.

It was a solid shot by Maidana, it was a shot where Floyd paid the price for using that pull counter, because the pull counter will work on a jab but if that jab is followed by a right hand, you’ll actually walk into the pull counter, and that’s actually what he did.

Floyd was getting the timing on Maidana’s jab and he was using the pull counter and it was working and I think he didn’t expect Maidana to come with a one-two, he expected him to come with a simple jab again. When the right hand followed the jab, Floyd was on his way back into range to throw his own right hand and he walked into the big right hand of Maidana. That was the second part of the one-two.

That’s the risk when you counter a jab with a right hand, I’ve seen guys get knocked out trying that. When the right hand doesn’t follow, you get that beautiful right hand counter over the top of the jab. In boxing it’s about timing sometimes and in that moment, the timing happened at the end of the round.

Jenna J: Floyd said that he wasn’t happy with some of the shots he was getting hit with. Do you think Floyd is admitting that he’s getting a little older or is that just a tribute to Marcos Maidana?

Paulie Malignaggi: I don’t know what to attribute that too, but I just think Floyd is his own worse critic. When you’re a competitor at that level, you’re gonna be highly critical of yourself and you’re gonna be more critical on yourself than other people. You’re gonna be critical of yourself for the things you understand.

Most people who watch boxing don’t get what they are watching, so they’ll criticize things that they have no business criticizing, they actually have no clue what they’re talking about. A fighter, he knows exactly what he should be criticizing about himself and what he shouldn’t be criticizing about himself.

Jenna J: What do you think is next for Floyd? In your opinion, what fight do you think can be made?

Paulie Malignaggi: I don’t know. I’d like to see Keith Thurman get a shot. I’m sure everybody wants to see Manny Pacquiao get a shot. Who knows, I’m sure in the next ten months, many things will be talked about but we’ll see. If Chris Algieri beats Pacquiao, I guarantee you he gets the shot.