Paulie Malignaggi may have busted Artem Lobov up last night (Sat., June 22, 2019) at Bare Knuckle FC 6 live on FITE.TV pay-per-view (PPV) from Tampa, Florida, but the former boxing world champion still fell short in pursuit of victory.
Lobov, who was clearly outmatched as far as technique goes, relied on pressure and grit to chase Malignaggi around the ring and initiate contact at all turns. Malignaggi played the role of counter puncher well until “Russian Hammer” was able to close the gap in the clinch and land short dirty boxing.
While some initially thought Malignaggi’s defense and precision striking was going to be enough to win the five-round main event, it was Lobov who walked away with the unanimous decision. The outcome was not something Malignaggi agreed with in any way, shape, or form, and “Magic Man” let it be known during the post-fight press conference (video replay HERE).
“I pretty much got the worst of everything because I got a shit decision and I made a tic-tac-toe board out of his face with my left hand,” Malignaggi said. “Look at my face, I got hit literally in one clinch. In one clinch, I got hit and that’s it. I took a couple of shots in that one clinch that he got me, I thought I did a pretty good job in clinches other than that, and really nothing else landed. I was very comfortable boxing.
“Luckily, I have experience fighting with one hand from earlier in my career, breaking my right hand so many times, so even when my right hand was gone I thought I boxed very well in three, four, and five. He got me in the clinch in three, but other than that I thought four and five—I mean five he didn’t land at all. I was popping him with jabs and check left hooks constantly. You want to give him four, I don’t think you can, but I guess if they want to give it to him.”
Malignaggi, who was competing for the first time since a knockout loss to Sam Eggington back in 2017, looked to have complete control of the fight in the early going. But after breaking his hand in the second round following a combination to Lobov, “Magic Man” was limited in his offensive ability moving forward.
“The only thing I could come up with is a couple of times off the spin-offs I went off-balance and he kind of grazed me with some shots that maybe they thought the punches caused me to go off-balance instead of my legs and my spin-off going off-balance and they thought he was hurting me so that made them give him a round,” Malignaggi said.
“This is also a problem when you have a state that has a fight every 50 years. You have judges that don’t know what the f*ck they’re watching, don’t know what the f*ck they’re doing, and you get this. Everybody and their mothers thought I won this fight, but you know what? I’m also 38 years old and I guess this is sort of a sign to say, ‘Yo, you gotta stop.’ Because I probably would have kept doing this if I won this fight tonight… once I got in there and I got going it was kind of fun. It was like I was in the moment. Sure, it sucks getting hit, of course. But I took that one shot in the clinch and I thought I dealt with the clinch pretty well, I was pretty elusive, and so I was boxing well.”
Even though Malignaggi landed the more meaningful punches and often made Lobov look like he was swinging at air, “Russian Hammer” really was the more active fighter and did his best to mix it up with the former pro boxer. Malignaggi credits Lobov for landing some good shots, but not enough to win the last three rounds.
“Ironically, the judges gave me the first two rounds and then after three they didn’t give me a round. Again, bush league shit, because I got cut in round three. Once the bush league shit came in they literally only scored my blood. The same shit was happening, he was getting out-boxed very easily, but now I was cut.
“And clearly the bush league judges scored the blood and not the actual fight or what was happening, because realistically nothing else happened aside from that clinch where he definitely got me with some good shots.”
What do you think, Maniacs? Did Lobov do enough to capture the win over Malignaggi?
For complete ‘Malignaggi vs. Lobov’ results and coverage click here.