By Ryan Burton
A war of words has erupted between WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi and former unified junior welterweight champion Devon Alexander on BoxingScene.com over the past few months.
Alexander's trainer and manager Kevin Cunningham recently took offense to comments Malignaggi made on Twitter where he accused Alexander of ducking him this past December. Malignaggi, the self proclaimed Twitter King set the record straight on the most recent edition of The Boxing Lab, BoxingScene's official audio show.
"I write about a 1000 tweets a day. I actually didn't go back and read what I wrote. I was in meetings all day and was actually tweeting in thre metings. Maybe I wrote something wrong," Malignaggi explained. "Kevin Cunningham approached me after Mayweather-Ortiz and said they wanted the fight but that HBO don't want you. Kery Davis don't want you. He put it up like a real man and I thought it was a shame they didn't want it," he continued.
He then explained his attempts to make a fight against Marcos Maidana whom Alexander ended up fighting and dominating this past February.
"I almost made the Maidana fight on twitter. But again HBO didn't want me so what ended up having is Devon fought maidana. I thought Devon looked sensational (in that fight). People say Madiana wasn't a welterweight but Devon had never fought there either. It was frustrating because the networks didn't want me on," said Malignaggi as he recapped the chain of events.
"I never really had my own date and I always had to be the B side. But I wasn't accepted (this last time around). It was frustrating and annoying. I had to take the Senchenko fight. There was no other options for me. Robert Guerrero rejected me and used that I couldn't get a date excuse against me and wouldn't fight me on pay-per-view (on the Mayweather-Cotto undercard). The excuses they use not to make Paulie Malignaggi fights I don't buy. You ended up making shittier fights," said Malignaggi as he pointed out how some fighters have less than stellar opposition green lighted on the premium networks.
The fighter of Italian decent praised Alexander for his performance against Maidana. Malignaggi has had a slew of potential opponents call him out on BoxingScene but he said that he isn't ready to decide on his next opponent just yet.
"The fight (against Alexander) didn't get made in December. Devon looked great (versus Maidana) but at the end of the day I am in a position where I am a world champion and right now I am looking to take a vacation. It's summer. I'm not looking to pick my fight yet. Barclays isn't until the fall. Not to pat myself on the back I consider myself an entrepeneur who knows how to box. I have a lot of stuff going on. When the time comes I will sit down and pick my opponent," Malignaggi revealed.
Send questions or comments to ringsidewriter@gmail.com Follow Ryan on Twitter @ringsidewriter and tune in to The Boxing Lab, Boxingscene's official audio on Tuesdays. The show is hosted by Ernie Gabion, Luis Sandoval and Ryan Burton.
