By Thomas Gerbasi

After sending Ricky Hatton, Juan Diaz (twice) and Amir Khan out to beat him up in four of Paulie Malignaggi’s last five fights, you’ve got to figure that Golden Boy Promotions finally got tired of picking on the kid from Brooklyn and decided to sign him to their roster.

But in reality, the September announcement that “The Magic Man” was joining up with Oscar De La Hoya’s promotional outfit probably had a lot to do with the fact that they saw how Malignaggi can sell a fight, and their hope that despite hitting 30 years old after a rough 11th round stoppage loss to Khan in May, he still has some gas left in the tank with a new trainer and a new weight class.

For Malignaggi, it’s truly a new lease on his fight career.

“It just feels good to have this opportunity to restart things and get out on a good path and a new path, to have a team I believe in and think about positive things from here on out,” he said. “They (Golden Boy) got to know me and I got to know them a little bit, and I think the marriage works well. As I got to know them, fighting on their shows and fighting their guys, I realized that they had a lot of pull and that these are people that I wanted to be associated with. They’re always striving for something better, they’re go-getters and I want to be associated with go-getters because I feel I’m like that myself. I want to be successful and I think you have to surround yourself with these kinds of people in order to do those things. So I think the marriage works out well and I look forward to thanking them in the ring with my performances for believing in me the way they did.”

The signing came after a 2010 that had not been kind to him up to that point. Following a two fight series with Juan Diaz in 2009 that resurrected a career that had hit the rocks after a stoppage loss to Ricky Hatton and a split with trainer Buddy McGirt, Malignaggi got what appeared to be a winnable fight against Khan, the WBA junior welterweight champ, in May of this year. That the bout was held in New York’s Madison Square Garden was a bonus for Malignaggi, but he was outgunned from the opening bell, finally running into an opponent that was stronger and faster than he was. It was a first for the Brooklynite, who always made up for his lack of power with hand and foot speed and a rapid-fire jab. On this night though, nothing clicked, and when the lanky Khan got his punches off, he made them count, forcing a stoppage in the 11th round.

For many in the New York fight community who had watched Malignaggi’s career from his amateur days, it was the end of the road. The fighter even wondered if he had worn out his welcome on the world stage.

“After the Khan fight, a lot of things were crossing my mind and I wasn’t sure where to go, what to do,” he said. “I knew if I was gonna continue I’d have to move up in weight because making weight was very, very difficult and it was becoming harder and harder every single camp, but I wasn’t sure if I continued if there were gonna be any opportunities for me. I also considered going to Europe and maybe signing with a Euro-based promoter.”

Amidst all this mental turmoil, Malignaggi finally started to deal with the bane of every professional fighter who has tasted one too many defeats: the realization that a lot of people you called friends are starting to fade into the background.

“You find out who your real friends are after you lose tough fights,” he said. “After the Diaz loss last year in Houston, it wasn’t really a fight I lost, so everybody was still getting my back – ‘oh yeah Paulie, you really won that fight; you’re the man, you’re the man.’ But when you get beat like I did in the Amir Khan fight, you find out if you really are the man in people’s eyes, and if you mean to them what you’re supposed to mean.’”

It’s probably because after his losses to Miguel Cotto, Hatton, and Diaz, there was still the probability that with the right tweaks and the right movement behind the scenes, there were still big fights and big paydays to be had. With the loss to Khan, suddenly it appeared that the gravy train had been derailed – permanently.

“I guess everybody’s got to look out for themselves,” he said quietly. “And I think I’ve gotta start doing the same thing.”

In July, two months after the Khan bout, he began that process, paying $75,000 to buy himself out of his contract with his first and only pro promoter, DiBella Entertainment. Next was the search for a promoter, and he landed on his feet with Golden Boy. Finally, he needed a new trainer after splitting with Sherif Younan, and he found one in Eric Brown at Los Angeles’ Wild Card gym.

Yes, you read that right, the quintessential New York fighter has gone west.

“It’s a good place to train right now,” said Malignaggi of the gym that’s home to Freddie Roach and his famous pupils Manny Pacquiao and Khan. “It reminds me of Gleason’s the way it was when I first started training. I love Gleason’s and it will always have a place in my heart, but the grit and the sweat and the fiery fighters are just not there as much anymore. As a fighter, it was getting harder for me to drive all around the east coast trying to get sparring.”

And contrary to what you thought was going to happen after the Khan bout, Malignaggi is still a fighter, still determined to make another run at a world title, this time at 147 pounds. It may be a quixotic quest, but one that will certainly become clearer following his Saturday return against Michael Lozada at the Pepsi Coliseum in Quebec City.

“I want to make a statement,” he said. “I’m very hungry, and I’ve trained very hard for the fight. Sometimes people tell you it’s not good to go into a fight with a lot of stuff on your mind, but in a way, this is why I’m glad I have boxing. It makes me not think about any negativity that’s going on in my life. Boxing is like my haven away from reality a lot of times, and I can always turn to boxing to keep my occupied and make it into a positive. I’m coming with a lot of anger, with a lot of drive, and I see Michael Lozada as somebody in front of me getting in the way of me reestablishing myself, which is what I want to do very badly.”

Lozada can probably be best classified as a journeyman, but he’s no stepping stone. 29 of his 36 wins have come by knockout, and his four losses since 2005 have only come to solid fighters like Edwin Valero, Jorge Barrios, Jorge Teron, and Jose Armando Santa Cruz. He’s jumping up in weight like Malignaggi, so his power will probably dull some and he can’t match the New Yorker speedwise, but he should be a test to see what Malignaggi has left. If he can recapture his previous form, it will be an interesting 2011 for him; if not, he’ll have to once again address his fistic mortality. It’s a conversation he’s had with himself, especially after turning 30 last month.

“I’m at a crossroads in a lot of ways,” he said. “If you would have told me at 20 where I would be at 30, it definitely wouldn’t be anywhere near where I’m at now. I thought I would have made a lot more money, I thought I would have been a lot more successful; not that I’m not grateful for the success I’ve had because I am. I also thought I would have settled down and I expected that I would have started a family, but things go the way they go. But I’m here and I’ll keep pushing along and keep plugging along. I’m very confident that I can get back to a championship level next year. Maybe not many people are gonna believe in that anymore, but I’m very confident.”

He claims that his current team is “the most complete team around me that I’ve had thus far. Even in my private life, I’ve got the right people around me,” and that’s a good thing. What’s even more telling is that after feeling anything but love for the sport at numerous times over the last few years, he’s finally come to a place where he sees boxing for what it is in his life – an indelible part of who he is.

“Boxing is almost like a drug or a bad girlfriend,” he said. “Sometimes you just get hooked and you realize that maybe it’s a problem, but at the same time, the high you get off it is so good that you just keep coming back. And the problems in boxing, I’ll take ‘em in a heartbeat. I’m just happy I’ve got a fight around the corner and that I can focus on that. This thing keeps my sanity.”

Then he chuckles before continuing, his excitement level rising.

“There’s nothing like the roar of the crowd in the middle of that violent atmosphere and being in a fight. It’s a getaway from reality, and there’s nothing like the rush of adrenalin.”

It’s what most, if not all, fighters can’t do without. Malignaggi is no different. What does separate him from most of his brothers in harm is that he can admit it. There’s no rush like the roar of the crowd, no substitute for it in acting, broadcasting, or any other field that he could choose to pursue in the future. So for now, while he can, he will continue to box. And despite the critics and naysayers who believe he will not reach the heights he hit in June of 2007 when he won his world championship belt, it’s important to point out that according to these same people, Malignaggi was never going to make it off the club show level, and would never be more than a local attraction. Instead, he’s a former world champion and has competed against some of the best fighters of this era. He may not always win, but he shows up, and he’s a survivor.

“People see me on fight night and they think they see this clown with crazy outfits and a crazy hairstyle, but I think what I’ve been through in my life has made me the man I am today,” he said. “I think the person you become as a man is shaped by your experiences as a child. And though there was a lot of f**ked up s**t that went down, at the end of the day that part I wouldn’t change because it allowed me to become this survivor kind of person. Don’t get me wrong, the people I have around me, and my family, I love them, and I know they love me, but at the same time, I know where I come from. And at a certain point, I had to succeed and survive or I would have been in a bad place. I continue to have that mentality, and there’s not a price I’m not willing to pay.”

“In the Khan fight, they wanted to stop it, and I had to tell them to let me keep going as much as I can,” he continues. “To me, that kind of pain is nothing. It’s like that saying, pain is temporary, pride is forever. To me, physical pain really is nothing compared to the things that I feel have affected my life and brought me here. It’s the experiences that have shaped me to get me here and I’ll continue to do what I’ve got to do to get ahead. I don’t like to step on people and I always try to be an honest person, but I notice a lot of people have to do that to get ahead and I notice that a lot of people have to look out for their own selves, and in a messed up way, it’s time for Paulie Malignaggi to start looking out more for himself and stop worrying about everybody else.”

Or in other words, don’t count him out yet.