Paulie Malignaggi Speaks on BKB Debut!

Former Pro Boxing Champion Paulie Malignaggi: BKB Debut, Boxing Return Possible

The VIP Crew: Paulie, how are you doing, brother?

Malignaggi: I been okay, Percy. How are you doing?

The VIP Crew: No complaints. Your BKB debut was rescheduled due to an injury. Your return is set for next month. How are you physically?

Malignaggi: Everything is good. I just had to lay off for a little while. We were still training but I had to lay off from impact. It was enough to push it back about 5 weeks. It wasn’t enough to halt my training completely. It just delayed the sort of training I wanted to do. That’s why I felt like just pushing it back a month would be the smarter thing to do. It wasn’t something that kept me out of the gym completely which would have been cause for a further postponement. I’m glad it was just something like that, so that I could continue training and go back to impact later.

The VIP Crew: There are so many opportunities nowadays within the sport of boxing with exhibitions becoming very prevalent. Why bareknuckle boxing instead of boxing right now?

Malignaggi: I don’t close the door completely on boxing, but here’s the thing, I’m a competitor. Obviously, we’re all competitors, but what that means for me is, I need to compete in something that is more than just money. It represents something that I can accomplish. I wasn’t quite sure… I mean grant it, Manny Pacquiao at 46 almost beat Mario Barrios, who I don’t think much of as a fighter or a champion. But overall, I don’t think an entity in boxing will allow me to compete at that high of an international level, at a world class level like I’m used to. I could do it for exhibitions and I’m open to that, but that’s not going to be as motivating for me. Especially to come back and get back in shape after I haven’t been in a training camp in so many years. It had to be something that would spurn my competitive juices and not just be about money that was going to do that for me. BKB, I feel like they have good fighters, it’s a solid company, and they have a good roster. I also feel like an attempt to become a world champion in the promotion is obtainable. Also, BKB is a company that has treated me well. I’ve worked with them for a long time. If I can do a little bit of what I did for BKFC years ago, which

was, put them on the map. BKB is already on the map because it’s not 6 years ago when this sport was new, but I could help push the brand more. It would be reciprocal to a lot of what they’ve done for me. They kept my name within the business of commentating and being an analysis, BKB and ProBox… if not for them, I think I would’ve had a lot of my legs cut out from under me with the way Showtime handled that separation. I think me fighting for BKB is a chance to help the brand and push the brand.

The VIP Crew: How does a boxer that utilized a lot of the ring during your prime, train and prepares to fight in something as small as the trigon?

Malignaggi: It doesn’t change it a lot. People kind of look at boxers as guys who run around the ring. I was a guy who liked to be in and out. When I was at my best, I was an in and out fighter. I wasn’t a guy who ran around the ring either. I boxed you; I would use the space that I had, but I also moved and punched. It wasn’t always a necessity to use a big space. I fought Miguel Cotto in a small space. I fought Juan Diaz in the first fight… they gave me a small ring. I can box you in the space I have. Also, there were things in the second half of my career that I added. When you look at the Zab Judah fight, I backed him up most of that fight. There are things in my repertoire I can dig into and see what works when the bell rings. I don’t think I ever got a lot of credit on this, but I’m one of the rare fighters that can fight going backwards and forward. I think fighting going backwards is rarer. Even a lot of guys who are “boxers,” you put them on the back foot and back them up and they typically fall apart. That was something I actually realized about Zab and that’s why my game plan was to back him up in that fight. As good of a boxer as he was, once you backed him up, he wasn’t that good of a boxer. I feel like

having that ability to box backwards and going forward gives me some options, especially in something like that Trigon where you need to show a little bit of that. I think people look at bareknuckle and they look at the savagery and the blood, but I think what gets lost in the mix is, a highly skilled fighter has some advantages here. You do have to have some toughness and you gotta be careful with some of the wild stuff that happens in there. But I think if you work and you’re sharp, your ability to box really does help.

The VIP Crew: Do you train more with just hand wraps to prepare for bareknuckle fights, or do you still prefer to wear gloves?

Malignaggi: I mix it up. I use MMA gloves because they force me to keep my hands closed more, opposed to the 8-ounce gloves where you could throw punches with a mildly opened glove. You can train with your bare hands, but you will wear out your hands faster. There are certain parts of training that I do barehanded and other aspects I do with MMA gloves just to preserve my hands throughout camp. I think in that regard, both of those ways force my hands to stay closed. That was a bit of a problem I had in the other bareknuckle fight I did with [Artem] Lobov in BKFC. I trained with 8-ounce gloves thinking I will just use small gloves, but 8-ounce gloves, especially with the hand wraps, still allowed me to not close my fist all the way. I think an important thing in bareknuckle is to properly close your fist as much as you can. The biggest difference from boxing to bareknuckle for me was the closing of my hands. So, doing that while maintaining speed because when you have your hands closed like that, you can kind of tighten up and lose speed. So, that’s the thing that we’ve worked on the most, and I’m satisfied with the results.