Malignaggi not your average fighter

DiBella: Malignaggi not your average fighter By Tim Smith Paulie Malignaggi, left, is as evasive as anybody in boxing -- when he chooses to use his movement. Paulie Malignaggi was an angry 16-year-old heading no place in particular, except maybe jail or the cemetery. He had been permanently expelled from Utrecht High School in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, for getting into fights and ditching classes. He was kicked out of his mother's home because he clashed with his abusive stepfather. He was crashing at his grandparents' place, sleeping on their couch at night. During the day, he was sleeping on couches at the homes of people where his grandfather did construction work. "My grandfather was trying to teach me a lesson. He made me go to work with him every day so I couldn't get into trouble," Malignaggi said. "But I didn't know anything about construction and he didn't want me messing anything up, so he would send me to inside jobs and he'd tell me to go somewhere and sit down. I'd sleep on these people's couches while the other guys on the crew worked." With energy to burn, and no place to expend it, Malignaggi convinced his grandfather to let him try boxing. The day he walked into Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn was the day Malignaggi's life was saved. "I was an angry kid and boxing kept me out of trouble," Malignaggi said. "Boxing was something I knew I would lose if I continued to act out the way that I was acting. It was the first time that I thought if I screwed up, I'd have something to lose." Today, Malignaggi, 27, is an accomplished pro. But he still fights like he has something to lose. Now it centers on his junior welterweight title, which he will defend against Herman Ngoudjo (16-1, 9 KOs) at Bally's in Atlantic City on Saturday night. The 12-round match will be broadcast on Showtime. Malignaggi describes Ngoudjo, who is from Cameroon and lives in Montreal, as a fighter whose style is similar to Ike Quartey's. "He doesn't stop; he's an aggressive fighter," Malignaggi said. "Like Quartey, he's got a long jab, but it's not as good as Quartey's is. He has a stronger right hand than Quartey . But he's flat-footed." That should work to Malignaggi's advantage because he uses his foot speed to box circles around those who fight like statues. This will be Malignaggi's first defense since he won the IBF strap against Lovemore N'dou on a lopsided 12-round decision June 16, 2007. Malignaggi thought he'd get more mileage out of the victory and the championship, but his career stalled over the last six months of the year. While other prominent boxers were vying for Fighter of the Year and mixing it up in matches that were under consideration for Fight of the Year, Malignaggi was idling. It felt like he was sleeping on the couches of his grandfather's construction customers again. Malignaggi said he was frozen out by the politics of the sport and a shortage of television dates on HBO and Showtime. After having his career stunted from 2005 to 2006 because of two surgeries to repair a bad hand, it seemed ironic that Malignaggi was completely healthy and still on the shelf for much of 2007. It was sheer torture for a boxer like the "Magic Man" who thrives on attention and likes to strut his stuff on a big stage. The kid believes he's destined to be a superstar … He definitely has star power. He's got a lot of pizzazz. -- Paulie Malignaggi's promoter Lou DiBella "The kid believes he's destined to be a superstar," said Lou DiBella, Malignaggi's equally frustrated promoter. "Nothing less than that will do for him. He definitely has star power. He's got a lot of pizzazz." That pizzazz has usually taken the form of Malignaggi's mouth going 1,000 mph to promote himself or a hair color (blond, blue, purple or red-streaked) to set the stage for all that Brooklyn flash. It used to come with an arrogant smirk that his opponents couldn't knock off his face. He has since lost the smirk. Early in his career, all that flash seemed to lack substance, and it alienated some boxing fans. He won two New York Daily News Golden Gloves championships and a U.S. National Amateur championship, dancing, prancing and preening his way to a 40-9 record in a brief, two-year amateur career. His flashy style in the ring seemed to run counter to the rough, brawling style that Malignaggi had honed in his numerous street skirmishes in Brooklyn. Much of that street fighting was a result of the anger Malignaggi had pent up inside of him. Malignaggi was born in Brooklyn, but his parents, who had migrated to the U.S. from Italy, returned to Palazzolo, Sicily, when he was a few months old. After his brother Umberto was born, the family moved back to Brooklyn. Malignaggi was 6 years old, and as a first-grader by then, spoke no English. Malignaggi's father, Sebastiano, was a professional soccer player in Italy and stayed in America only a few weeks before returning to Italy. He soon divorced his wife, leaving her in the U.S. with two small boys. Malignaggi said he didn't see his father again until he was 17. "My mother really struggled when we were young," Malignaggi said. "She was on food stamps and welfare. Looking back, I know we didn't have a lot, but I never felt I was at a loss for anything." His mother remarried when Malignaggi was 9, and they moved into their stepfather's home in New Jersey. While that brought a level of financial stability to his life, it didn't help him emotionally. He clashed with his stepfather, who would often beat Malignaggi and his brother. "I began to feel a lot of emotional distress during that time and I was more unhappy than ever," Malignaggi said. "I was angry a lot." When Malignaggi was 15, he stood up to his stepfather during one of their clashes and his parents threw him out of the house. He went to live with his mother's parents in Brooklyn, and transferred schools as well. That didn't work out, either. Soon he was thrown out of school for fighting and cutting classes. His mother had forbidden him from boxing when he was younger. Malignaggi wanted to try the sport again as a teenager, but not as an athletic pursuit. Paulie Malignaggi's one loss came to Miguel Cotto, right, in 2006. "I wanted to learn how to box so I could kick people's asses," Malignaggi said. "I didn't want to box for a living because I thought all the guys eventually got brain damage. My grandfather said no because he knew for the wrong reasons." But after having Malignaggi lay around on construction jobs all day, and with some prodding from his uncle, Dario, who used boxing as a means to work out, his grandfather relented. As he learned more about boxing, Malignaggi discovered that he would have to corral that anger and exercise more discipline if he was going to win. And he wanted to win more than anything else. "I'm a very competitive person," he said. "I want to win at everything I'm doing. It doesn't matter what it is. I want to beat the person that I'm competing against." The more he boxed, the more disciplined he became. And the more disciplined he became, the more he won. That refinement in his character carried over to his style in the ring. He could win using his speed and quickness a lot faster than he could trying to outslug his opponents. And if he could show the guy up by dancing around the ring, popping him with a jab and showboating, then all the better.