By Rick Reeno
MGM Grand, Las Vegas - Former champion Paulie Malignaggi was ringside to observe the controversial ending to Saturday night's welterweight bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Victor Ortiz, the WBC champion. After Ortiz intentionally used his head in the fourth round, he was penalized a point by referee Joe Cortez. Ortiz tried to calm the situation by going over to hug Mayweather, but when he pulled away from that hug, with his hands down, Mayweather fired off two punches that knocked him out.
Malignaggi saw nothing wrong with Mayweather's actions, because Ortiz made it a street fight. Ortiz started a street fight and should have kept it a street fight, Malignaggi said.
"I thought the rule was 'protect yourself at all times' last time I checked. I feel bad for Victor and I'm sure he trained hard for the fight. He took the fight to that point. Mayweather was acting like any grown man, he was pissed off. That was three intentional headbutts I counted. You can't take the fight to the streets and then says 'oh, I want to hug you now because you're mad.' A grown man is not going to take that into consideration. He's going to say 'you headbutted me, f**k you, I don't want to be friends,'" Malignaggi told BoxingScene.com.
"You can't take it one way and then go the other. It was a little frustrating to see Victor act that way because if you're going to take it there, you better keep it there. You take it to a dirty place and turn it into a street fight, you better keep it there."