Diaz controversially outpoints unlucky Malignaggi
If Juan Diaz needed further reminder of what he needed to get done in the ring, all he had to do was listen to his entrance song by popular Mexican music group Tigres del Norte that he knows gets his hometown crowd riled up so well.
The song? Jefe de jefes, Spanish for "Boss of Bosses."
It took him a round, but Diaz proceeded to show Paulie Malignaggi who was boss, although in far from overwhelming fashion, beating the slick and freakishly quick Brooklynite by unanimous decision in a junior welterweight showdown that was the main event of a 14-bout card before 7,611 at Toyota Center.
The win came with the NABO belt.
Diaz (35-2, 17 knockouts) didn't need his best game to do it. Looking half a step off, at times slow and not as sharp with his stance or his punches as he should have been, Diaz nonetheless dictated the action, at times having to chase around the fast-moving and elusive Malignaggi (26-3, 5 KOs), who might have seen his last chance at the big time pass him by in suffering another tough loss.
Diaz's performance, while far from stellar and definitely not one that will win him over many new fans, seemed to be surprisingly enough to convince the ringside judges, whose integrity had been brought into question by Malignaggi in the days leading up to the fight. Judge David Sutherland scored it 116-112, Raul Caiz 115-113 and Gale Van Hoy 118-110 in favour of Diaz.
The victory puts Diaz, the hard-charging Houston native, back on the road to title contention after suffering an entertaining knockout loss to Mexican icon Juan Manuel Marquez in February that cost him his IBO lightweight title along with the vacant WBA and WBO lightweight super titles.
"I'm ready for whoever they put in front of me next. Whether it's a rematch with Malignaggi or a rematch with Marquez." said Diaz, who suffered a cut to his left eyelid in the second round that had grown into a nasty gash by the sixth. Malignaggi, who had the edge in some of the stats (191-178 in punches connected, 111-55 in jabs connected) and looked stronger in the final rounds, made his disappointment with the scores heard afterward.
"Boxing is full of (garbage)," Malignaggi said, asking Diaz for a rematch in New York City.
"I had told you guys that I had to deal with the politics, this state never gives a fair shake to anyone in a hometown fight. I thought I outboxed him and won." Malignaggi said
Malignaggi, nicknamed "The Magic Man," had accused event promoter Golden Boy Promotions (also Diaz's promoter) of stacking the odds against him, from the weight, to the choice of venue and lastly to the judges, two of whom (Caiz and Van Hoy) he deemed biased toward Golden Boy fighters.
The fight proved to be a more then unlucky break for Malignaggi who fought a smart fight and seemed deserving of a draw at the very least.