by David P. Greisman
They are called keyboard warriors.
They are those who take advantage of the impersonal nature of the Internet. They hurl insults, provoke and taunt with no fear of retribution, no potential for comeuppance. It is easy to hide behind the keyboard, be it in chat rooms, on message boards, or in newspaper comments sections.
Anonymity is empowering.
What happens when one keyboard warrior knows who the other keyboard warrior is? And what does it mean when the keyboard warriors have just as much bravado when the computers are off and the fight is on?
Rivalries become heated. Passion boils over.
In this case, the forum was Twitter, the battleground was the junior-welterweight division, and the resolution came with the first physical punches being landed more than three months after the first verbal blows were thrown.
The Internet’s seemingly limitless expanses allow everyone to stake a claim. Not so in boxing. Opportunity is limited in the Sweet Science.
And so Amir Khan and Paulie Malignaggi came to a crossroads, Khan a world titleholder out of the United Kingdom searching for a foothold in the United States, Malignaggi a former titlist seeking one more chance to return to prominence.
They could’ve remained separate and still achieved their goals. But Malignaggi saw Khan as a threat – Khan had a world title, the backing of Golden Boy Promotions and the interest of HBO. The red carpet was being rolled out for Khan. Malignaggi, meanwhile, was close to being off the guest list.
Khan, in turn, saw Malignaggi as a stepping-stone, an established name and an accomplished fighter. Yes, Khan had the world title, the major promoter and the network money. Yet beating Malignaggi would earn him respect.
They needed each other.
In the past, one fighter might crash the other’s press conference, call him out in an interview, or just say nothing publicly while privately lobbying for a match. In this case, they exchanged words megabit by megabit.
There was this Feb. 1 shot from Malignaggi: “KHAN DOESN’T WANT IT! He knows who is the man.”
And this shot five minutes later: “IF U BRING UP AMIR KHAN, make sure u call him AMIR CON…or [he] will not ANSWER.”
Khan – or, as Khan later claimed, a friend updating his Twitter account, fired back: “I wil fight paulie malanagi [in] may if he wants it … let’s get it on, I’ll even travel 2 NYC.”
And again: “I will come to paulie’s city to defeat him n put up the WBA title on may 15th I have a HBO date let’s get it on.”
The trash talk continued. Khan’s proposed fight with Juan Manuel Marquez fell through. By the middle of February, the fight with Malignaggi had been signed.
Two willing parties, each willing to motor his mouth, each wanting to shut the other up. These were no keyboard warriors. The testosterone flowed in person, too.
Rivalries became heated. Passion boils over.
They nearly brawled the day before they were scheduled to do so. At the weigh-in, Khan and Malignaggi went forehead to forehead, two rams digging in. Khan shoved Malignaggi, and suddenly Khan’s supporters stormed toward the stage. All the while, the fighters’ team members pulled the boxers away. If words were to be backed up, it would need to be done in the ring.
Words like: “You shouldn’t throw stones if you live in a glass house and if you got a glass jaw, you should watch your mouth cuz I’ll break your face.”
Malignaggi’s taunt spotlighted the fact that Khan had been knocked out in less than a minute by Breidis Prescott and knocked down by other opponents. But Malignaggi had only knocked out five opponents in his 27 victories, the last one being a technical knockout nearly seven years ago against an opponent of a far lesser pedigree than Khan.
Malignaggi didn’t have the power to beat Khan. He didn’t have the speed either.
In every sport, there are the superstars who excel at everything they do. But there are also those who become accomplished by compensating for their weaknesses and accentuating their strengths.
Paulie Malignaggi had been able to succeed despite his lack of power, calling upon fast hands and good movement. He scored victories over fighters who were slower (using his speed to avoid them) or smaller (and came forward against Malignaggi, who in turn out-boxed them).
Khan was bigger and faster. And he didn’t have to worry about Malignaggi testing his chin.
Not that he gave Malignaggi many chances to hit him. Malignaggi landed just one of every four punches he threw, 127 of 531 on the night, 57 of which were jabs, 70 of which were power punches.
Malignaggi’s hand speed wasn’t superior. He wasn’t using foot movement either. Khan was able to target and land. Khan had a 40 percent connect rate, hitting Malignaggi with 259 of 653 shots, including 151 jabs that knocked Malignaggi’s head backwards and, in turn, set up 108 landed power punches.
Malignaggi had been full of fire before the fight. Khan doused those flames. Just before referee Steve Smoger stepped in to end the bout in the 11th round, Malignaggi looked the part of a beaten man, while Khan looked prepared to issue more of a beating.
Khan beat respect into Malignaggi – “Amir just came and fought a very good fight,” he said in a post-fight interview. “I give him a lot of credit.”
And by taking a beating, Malignaggi earned Khan’s respect. They embraced in the ring, two fighters who showed they knew how to punch more than a keyboard.
“Paulie was a tough opponent,” Khan said early Sunday morning on Twitter. “He came strong and sharp.
“My eyes are a little bruised,” Khan wrote. “I got a few elbows and head butts!”
You should’ve seen the other guy.
You sure weren’t gonna hear him.
Malignaggi’s Twitter stood silent, its last update coming two days before the fight. There would be no more verbal blows – not when the physical shots had given Khan the Tweet, Tweet victory.
The 10 Count
1. Here is all that really needs to be said about the Shane Mosley-Floyd Mayweather Jr. pay-per-view pulling in a buy rate of 1.4 million:
Fantastic!
I don’t care for the arguments about whether Mayweather now deserves more money than Manny Pacquiao because Mosley-Mayweather sold 1.4 million and Pacquiao-Clottey sold 700,000.
Just get the fight signed. No matter what, two rich guys are going to get even richer.
2. Let us instead solely celebrate Mosley-Mayweather being the second-highest grossing non-heavyweight boxing pay-per-view ever, behind only Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya.
We should want the fights that belong on pay-per-view to do well. We should want the fights that don’t belong on pay-per-view to do poorly, which means we need to exercise self-control and speak with our wallets.
Big fights like Mosley-Mayweather and Mayweather-Pacquiao belong on pay-per-view. The rematch between Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Diaz? Not so much. Why do you think Golden Boy Promotions is stacking the undercard to Marquez-Diaz 2 when so many recent undercards have been weak? Golden Boy is buying into the U F C strategy of putting on an entire show instead of just offering preliminary bouts before the main event.
Meanwhile, if Mayweather-Pacquiao does finally get signed, let us hope the powers that be decide against cranking up the price, capitalizing on the demand by extorting more from those who demand it.
3. Apparently Freddie Roach hasn’t officially replaced Lennox Lewis as color commentator for HBO. Another trainer has been given an audition – Naazim Richardson, the quote machine who has been in the corner of Bernard Hopkins and Shane Mosley.
George Willis of the New York Post spotted Richardson ringside alongside Bob Papa and Max Kellerman calling a fight on the undercard to Khan-Malignaggi.
Will another commentator be hired? Dan Rafael of ESPN.com says plans are “apparently under way to eventually replace Lewis,” but he also noted that “HBO spokesman Kevin Flaherty said the network has no plans to fill Lewis’ role” on Boxing After Dark.
I like the idea of Richardson as commentator. He’d also have more time to dedicate to his duties than Roach would.
4. It’s no surprise that Kelly Pavlik is leaving the middleweight division behind, waiving his right to a rematch with Sergio Martinez and heading either to super middleweight or light heavyweight. After all, Pavlik is a lanky 6-foot-2. Making 160 pounds hasn’t been easy.
What is surprising, though, is the claim that Pavlik weighed 173 pounds three days before his fight last month with Martinez – meaning he had to lose 13 pounds in the two days before the weigh-in, according to ESPN.com scribe Dan Rafael.
Why is this surprising?
Pavlik held two world titles, one of which was the World Boxing Council belt. The WBC rules call for fighters to be weighed 30 days and 7 days before the fight. Thirty days out, fighters cannot be more than 10 percent overweight. Seven days out, fighters cannot be more than 5 percent overweight.
Three days out, Pavlik was more than 8 percent overweight.
What happened here? Did the WBC do its mandated weigh-ins with Pavlik and Martinez? Did the WBC know that Pavlik was overweight?
5. Returning to Kermit Cintron’s fall out of the ring earlier this month… Somebody’s lying.
A quick recap:
May 9: Kermit Cintron tells BoxingScene.com that his fall out of the ring only knocked the wind out of him, but the ringside physicians stopped the fight without giving him his full five minutes to recover.
May 10: Paul Wallace, the ringside physician at the fight, tells the Los Angeles Times that he “wanted the fight stopped because the fighter twice said he could not continue. He was asked, ‘Can you continue?’ and he said ‘no.’ Twice.
“If he had mentioned to me something like, ‘Give me a moment…’ I understand; these are warriors. Any hint that he still wanted to participate, we would’ve given that to him. We would have got him up and given him a second evaluation.”
May 11: Cintron’s team members dispute Wallace’s account. Attorney Josh Dubin and trainer Ronnie Shields tell BoxingScene.com that they were just in front of Cintron after he fell out of the ring.
“None of us heard him say that ever. He was asked several times if he could continue after having the wind knocked out him, and his answer, unequivocally, was 'let me continue, I just need to catch my breath.' Over and Over again he's saying that,’ Dubin said.
Said Shields: “I heard the doctor say 'stay down, you might have a punctured lung.’ ”
Somebody’s lying…
6. This just underscores why it’s so, so important to wait for all the facts to come out, rather than offering knee-jerk opinions based on incomplete information.
Can people question whether Cintron has the warrior mentality to fight through pain and adversity? Sure.
But I still don’t believe that Cintron, to quote my friend Jason, “hit Williams with his best shot, saw Williams still coming forward, and he checked out mentally. When a chance to get out of the fight presented itself, he quite literally jumped at opportunity.”
7. I think a lot of people lend too much credence to slow-motion replays, dissected as if the replays were the Zapruder film, with their opinions colored by their dislike of Cintron.
A guy lands his best shot, he knows he can land his best shot, and he’ll keep throwing. Any other assertions about Cintron seem to rely on complicated calculations, that the square root of A + B – C x D divided by F equals Cintron landing a good right hand, getting tied up, tripping, diving and quitting.
8. Manny Pacquiao has won a seat on the Philippines Congress.
“Speak softly and carry a big stick”? Not anymore, Teddy Roosevelt. These days, it’s “Speak softly and carry a big left hand.”
9. That mini-riot at the weigh-in for Khan-Malignaggi has been blamed on the number of Khan supporters present at an event that was supposed to have been closed to the public.
Just imagine if there had been a riot at a Ricky Hatton weigh-in full of masses of raucous, singing Hatton supporters.
There still would’ve been one Ricky Hatton … and a million little pieces of Paulie Malignaggi.
10. Tweet of the Week: “Anyone else think Paulie Malignaggi’s twitter is going to be quiet as a mouse tonight?” – @Gabriel_Montoya, the MaxBoxing.com writer, during Round 2 of Khan-Malignaggi.
Montoya was right.
David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. His weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com
