By Mark Vester
Gale Van Hoy, the Texas judge in the center of the Paulie Malignaggi-Juan Diaz controversy, has spoken out. Several days before the fight, Malignaggi blasted Golden Boy Promotions for selecting Van Hoy as a judge for the fight. Malignaggi said Van Hoy was very pro-Texas judge and would likely score the fight by a huge margin for Diaz. When the fight was over on Saturday at the Toyota Center, Malignaggi was right. Van Hoy's score was 118-110 in favor of Diaz, a score so bad that even Oscar De La Hoya, Diaz's promoter, threw the judge under the bus. The majority of the viewing audience saw Malignaggi as the winner.
Van Hoy spoke on the record with Mike Marley of The Examiner. He admits that he could have made an error but at the same time he denied all of the allegations that pose him as a hometown judge. He said Malignaggi has a good jab, though the lack of power in the jab played a role in his scoring of the fight.
“I never claimed to be perfect but I’m not a hometown judge. I’ve done 65 or so world title fights. I’ve done fights involving Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather and Kostya Tszyu. I did a Paulie fight in Little Rock, an eight rounder and I gave Paulie six or seven rounds. He doesn’t remember or mention that,” Van Hoy said.
“I am not infallible but this is how I saw it. Maybe, in retrospect, I was wide in my score, maybe I was off by a round or two. Paulie’s got a good jab but it kept hitting Juan’s gloves. There was not enough power in those jab.”
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