Paulie Malignaggi spent more than eight hours waiting for a doctor at Leeds General Hospital in England to stitch him up following his split-decision victory Saturday night in a Bare Knuckle Boxing event.
Mulling his future in fight sports as he awaited X-rays on his aching hands, Malignaggi, 44, told ProBoxTV’s “BoxingScene Today” that “I’ve got to do a lot of thinking now” about his future in combat sports.
The ProBoxTV analyst said his triumph over Tyler Goodjohn was fulfilling as a competitor, but the former welterweight champion was left to soberly recount his decision to participate given the broken ribs ands hip and blurry vision that accompanied the triumph.
“I felt younger in camp, but after the fight, you feel like an old man,” Malignaggi said to host Ricardo Celis and analysts Robert Garcia and Chris Algieri. “I’ve had two BKB fights now. I started well, but my hands hurt so much, I had to slow.”
Garcia praised Malignaggi’s courage for taking the bout.
“It’s like a street fight,” Garcia said, knowing Malignaggi’s fractures were caused by late-fight body punches when the pair clinched.
“The blows are less concussive, but it is bone to bone,” Malignaggi said, elaborating that hard-handed skilled boxers such as former 154lbs champion like Austin Trout are best suited for BKB.
He added that the exposed fingers also pose a danger, like the Goodjohn pokes that caused bloodiness behind his eyes and caused temporary near blindness in his right eye.
“Combat is not easy,” Malignaggi said, to which Algieri replied, “Boxing is the most difficult fight sport to master … we run out of time trying.”
Malignaggi took those words to heart, recounting how he dozed off in the hospital waiting room, only to be awoken by the dripping of his own blood from the un-stitched cuts on his head caused by a punch and a head butt.
“It’s just messy,” he said, wearing dark sunglasses that covered two swollen eyes.
He was thankful for hiding the fact he was fighting from his mother, telling her “WiFi doesn’t work here,” in Leeds.
He credited Goodjohn for creatively fighting dirty with painful punches to the back that broke the ribs and hip. At one point, Malignaggi turned southpaw to avoid the pain of the body shots only to be struck by a blow Malignaggi himself practices often.
“You want a clean fight, but you were in a street brawl,” Algieri cracked.
“The only thing I’m against is PEDs,” Malignaggi responded. “Dirty tricks? That’s a fight.”
Malignaggi spoke to BoxingScene late Monday night in the U.S., as he opted to board a short flight to Sicily to rest and recover in the company of his father and family rather than take a lengthier flight back to the U.S.
He said returning to fight has allowed him to emerge from “normalcy that became a repetitive motion – almost a lull. I needed a trigger, and I’ve thought maybe I could win a championship [in BKB].
“As I did it, I didn’t think I’d miss the daily grind. I’d missed the crowd, the adrenaline, the adulation. But then I realized I had missed the grind, how it had centered me – timing my workouts, my [conditioning], my meals. It gave me something to look forward to every day. The more [positive] results, the more motivation.”
Malignaggi said he’ll continue reflecting on his fight future as he literally rests his bones in Sicily.
“I have time to decide, to see how my eye is – and my ribs, hands and hip,” Malignaggi said. “I think I can get a belt in BKB. There may be a place for me in Misfits. But can my hands last six rounds? And the eye pokes causing retinal damage. Do I want the risk?”
Perhaps Malignaggi can find peace with what he’s given the sport, and what it’s taken from him, to maintain his vision and voice and continue providing the sport the honesty that it sorely needs.
