Paulie Malignaggi was upset with the way one of the judges scored his split decision loss to Adrien Broner on Saturday at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, and he even accused the judge of being paid off by Broner’s manager.
Malignaggi (32-5, 7 KOs) lost his WBA welterweight title belt to Broner (27-0, 22 KOs) via split decision. Two judges had the fight scored 115-113, which means they each had it 7 rounds to 5, but in favor of different fighters. Glenn Feldman scored it 115-113 for Broner, while Tom Miller had it 115-113 for Malignaggi.
The outlier of the group was judge Tom Schreck, who scored it 117-111, meaning he gave 9 rounds to Broner and only three to Malignaggi. Malignaggi thought that was absurd, and even accused Schreck of being paid off by Broner’s manager, Al Haymon, who also manages Floyd Mayweather Jr.
“Tom Schreck is a New York judge that was in Al Haymon’s pocket,” Malignaggi said in his postfight interview with Showtime’s Jim Gray. “It’s very simple. 117-111 was a joke. This was a close fight. I don’t even mind if you had him winning close or if you had me winning close, it was really that kind of fight. I’m not an immature kid like [Broner].
“The fight could have gone either way.”
After Malignaggi accused Schreck of being paid off, Gray followed up and asked if Malignaggi thought the fight was fixed.
“I’m not saying it was fixed,” Malignaggi began, “but it’s always the politically more connected fighter who gets the close decisions, and this was no different. It always happens.”
Malignaggi continued to rant about the scoring.
“Boxing’s always full of s—, man. It’s always politics. The fans can never go home happy. You get a great show, and it always gets spoiled with some b.s. like this.”
Gray pointed out that the more favored fighter getting decisions is part of the game, and Malignaggi agreed.
“It’s part of the game, but is it right, Jim?” Malignaggi asked. “It’s part of the game, but is it right? Does that mean it shouldn’t get fixed? It is part of the game, but does that mean everybody should just sit back and not fix it? Somebody should stand up and do something about it. I feel like I’m the only one that ever talks and opens his mouth.”
Malignaggi believes the scorecards should have treated him more favorably based on what he did in the fight.
“I thought I outworked [Broner],” Malignaggi told Gray. “[Broner] was sharp, but he just wasn’t busy. He didn’t land a lot of the shots he was throwing. They looked pretty, but he worked about 30 seconds of every round. It was a close fight, because when he did work, it was good. I’m not going to take that away from him. But I thought I outworked him. I thought I outworked him by a lot. I thought I threw a lot more punches. I thought I carried the pace. I thought I threw a lot more body shots.
“I’m the defending champion, you have to take the belt from the champion. I don’t think he did enough to take away the belt from the champion tonight.
Though we appreciate Malignaggi being outspoken as usual — and his point about connected fighters receiving decisions is generally accurate — we have to disagree with him in this case. Broner did not look good in the fight, but Malignaggi did not do enough to win. Also, there seems to be some evidence that would dispute Malignaggi’s claim that Schreck was paid off.
Boxing Scene got a copy of the three judges’ scorecards. Schreck gave three of the first four rounds to Malignaggi before giving the rest to Broner from the fifth on. In fact, all three judges gave the first, second, and fourth to Malignaggi. The only difference was Schreck didn’t give Paulie any rounds after that.
Let me ask you a simple question: If you’re being paid to fix a decision, would you start off by giving rounds to the other guy? I don’t think so.
