A few months ago in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, master novelist Philip Roth addressed the bestselling popularity of writers such as James Patterson and Nora Roberts thusly: “They are entertainers. They aren’t writers.”
A similar thought happened to me as I watched Saturday’s junior welterweight fights on Showtime and HBO. In the context of what Timothy Bradley and Lamont Peterson were doing a few spots down the dial, the men contesting something called the “WBO NABO light welterweight title” on HBO were somewhere below championship caliber.
Paulie Malignaggi and Juan Diaz were entertainers. They weren’t prizefighters.
Their match at Chicago’s UIC Pavilion was indeed entertaining. But to watch Malignaggi decision Diaz by three scores of 116-111 was to wonder if either guy could win a round against Bradley or Peterson – the two men fighting for the WBO’s actual 140-pound title in Rancho Mirage, Calif., in a fight Bradley took, 118-110, 119-108 and 120-107.
Though the Malignaggi-Diaz series now stands at 1-1, few clamor for a rubber match. Boxing pundits, most all living much close to Malignaggi’s Brooklyn than Diaz’s Houston, have sanctioned Malignaggi’s claim to a points victory in the first fight because one Texas judge saw a narrow victory for Diaz as a wide one. So be it. Diaz, formerly a light-hitting lightweight, doesn’t belong above 135 pounds anyway.
And Malignaggi makes a useful foil. He’d be a perfect piece in what we can now begin begging to have done with the 140-pound division. Give us a Showtime super-lightweight Super Six II, boys!
Easy, kid. First, Saturday’s matches.
Since fights were happening all over the place – California, Illinois, Switzerland – and there’s just no telling what time they actually went off, let’s imagine Bradley-Peterson and Malignaggi-Diaz happened simultaneously.
The opening rounds in Chicago found Juan Diaz settled into something of the confounded-counterpuncher role and Paulie Malignaggi enjoying such fortune. Diaz looked uneasy in the first seven minutes. So Malignaggi had little occasion to employ his jitter-jitter-jitter-jab-jab attack. Diaz, after all, hardly engaged.
The third and fourth rounds saw Malignaggi sit down on his punches, employ overrated defense and allow Diaz back in the fight. Neither guy won both the third and fourth rounds. But most judges, eager to make up for the “robbery” in Houston, awarded them to Malignaggi.
Meanwhile in Rancho Mirage, Timothy Bradley began his fourth title defense by attacking Lamont Peterson – a gifted and undefeated challenger with more professional experience than the champ. Bradley tried all his many tools on Peterson, whose class in the opening rounds was inarguable. Then Bradley decided on right crosses and tried to break Peterson’s will.
It almost worked. Bradley dropped Peterson with a right cross in the opening minute of round three. Peterson rose and motioned to the ref, correctly, that the punch landed on a spot well behind the front of his head. Bradley went straight at Peterson, then, to determine how much give the challenger had in his spirit.
Two minutes and 50 or so punches later, having got the worst of a hellacious inside exchange in which both men leveraged short hooks onto each other’s ribs, Bradley realized Peterson’s spirit had exactly no give.
But that’s how champions find out.
Back in Chicago, after giving away most of the fifth and sixth rounds, Malignaggi caught Diaz with a right cross thrown underneath Diaz’s extended left arm. Diaz buckled. Having staggered Diaz with the very punch Juan Manuel Marquez used to finish Diaz in February, Malignaggi eschewed all self-preservation and blasted Diaz out the ring with a fusillade of hooks and crosses.
Right. That’s what Bradley would have done; it’s what Marquez did do; but the actions of those two champions are lousy predictors for Malignaggi’s comportment. His opponent startled, bleeding, vulnerable, Malignaggi removed himself from punching range and began to act a clown. Tongue out, right arm cranking, hips shaking, silly braids dancing, Malignaggi spent the fight’s most important 30 seconds letting Chicago know Paulie was back!
But for Diaz’s utter lack of power at 140 pounds and his trainer’s bizarre instructions – Ronnie Shields, before round 10: “You gotta bum-rush this guy right now!”; Shields after round 10: “Stop rushing in!” – Malignaggi might have collected a proper reward in the 12th for his abject lack of professionalism in the sixth. Instead Malignaggi escaped with his most impressive win in years and a chance to demand a rematch with the ghost of Ricky Hatton.
While Paulie was being Paulie in the Windy Cindy, though, Timothy was being Timothy near his native Palm Springs. And Timothy would make hamburger of Paulie.
Bradley, whose ring IQ is underestimated about as much as his head movement, quickly found the counterintuitive error of fighting his taller opponent on the inside – where taller men are usually better fought. He obeyed his corner and expanded the small ring right before Peterson’s eyes. Like a prime Greg Maddux growing the strike zone before a bemused hitter, Bradley used his legs to create an illusion of limitless canvas in Peterson’s mind.
Oh, but Peterson was game. Well behind on all cards, he took his trainer’s words to heart and fought every second of the final nine minutes. In so doing, Peterson made the most entertaining 118-110 fight in years.
After their victories both Malignaggi and Bradley complimented their opponents. But where Bradley gave sincere thanks to God, Malignaggi had a little message for “the critics,” “the cynics,” “the haters” and of course “you punks” who dared doubt his class.
While copping to three of those charges – still no idea what “hater” means – I’d like to ask Showtime to make Malignaggi and Bradley the charter signees to a 2010 super-lightweight Super Six II tournament. Mix in Amir Khan, Devon Alexander, Marcos Maidana and a wildcard like Edwin Valero and see if the 140-pounders can’t generate half the excitement your super middleweights have.
Here, I even have a slogan. “Super Six II: Prizefighters, not Entertainers.”
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter.com/bartbarry