"There were some darker periods during my career. It's really been a roller coaster ride. There's been a lot of ups and downs and twists and turns and, you know, a lot of times, you're coming up to the corner and you don't know what's around the corner waiting for you...I've done it the hard way with nothing really given to me. I can't say I'm surprised. It's a good feeling to still be around, I'd say that; especially when a lot of guys and peers from my generation, there's probably only a handful that's left from my generation at the high level of the sport," stated two-division world champion Paulie Malignaggi, who talked about his boxing career and discussed some of the highs and lows that ultimately put him back into a position to challenge for another world title. Check it out!
BT: Looking back on your career, there was a time when you were kind of fed up with the politics and the direction that your career was going in. Now that you're back in this position, are you surprised to see how things turned around for you?
PM: There were some darker periods during my career. It's really been a roller coaster ride. There's been a lot of ups and downs and twists and turns and, you know, a lot of times, you're coming up to the corner and you don't know what's around the corner waiting for you. I've had that kind of career where a lot of times, it just comes to me and I take it as it comes. Sometimes it hasn't been so good and sometimes I've been able to turn it around and make good on it. I don't think I'm surprised because I've always been resilient. I'm a stubborn guy. I'm also not surprised because I probably, when I turned pro, expected a lot more of myself than what I've accomplished. So to say that I accomplished this much, in my eyes, I underachieved anyway, you know what I'm saying, but to at least be this far, no, I can't say I'm surprised. Maybe a lot of other people are surprised. Looking back at the road I've traveled, from that perspective, I gained respect for what I've done because I've done it the hard way with nothing really given to me. I can't say I'm surprised. It's a good feeling to still be around, I'd say that; especially when a lot of guys and peers from my generation, there's probably only a handful that's left from my generation at the high level of the sport, but really, aside from that, I can't say I'm surprised, no.
BT: Would you say that you're currently in the best place, or the most content position, that you've ever been in as far as your career is concerned?
PM: Absolutely. I think I have the best situation for me at this point in my career, you know. The only regret is that I didn't have this situation when I was in my 20's when I was younger. What I mean by this situation is me as a fighter with the training team I have now. You know, I have a head trainer in Eric Brown, but I have a lot of other guys in the mix as well with Vincent Calloway as my conditioning, Orlando Carrasquillo as my pad man. I have Golden Boy as my promoter; Al Haymon really leading the way at the top of the food chain as far as people you want to be with in boxing. I still have the people that I came up and trusted that have stuck with me in Steve Bash and Anthony Catanzaro. I feel like I've got the best of the business as well as the best of the people that are close to me, you know what I'm sayin'. I feel content in that way. I feel the most content I've been in my career in that way. The only regret, because you know me, man, I guess I'm always looking at the glass half empty and wondering how I can always make it better; I feel like, without a dobut, if I had this team from my early 20's until now, I'd be a first ballot Hall of Famer. Bar none; no doubt about it. You get the best fights for you, you get put in the best situations, you get the best money, you get the most press; it just goes on and on and on. I do say it makes you appreciate it that much more, having been through all the other stuff before. It does make you appreciate it a lot. Sometimes I see these young guys and they're in the situation that I have now, they got it from when they turned pro, and I don't know if they appreciate it because they don't know the difference. When you're on the flip side of the script, it's not as much fun. It's a lot of headaches and I survived that part of my career and I've gone on to some good things because of it. I feel like it's developed my character, both as a person and as a fighter.
BT: Do you think coming up the hard way has made you a lot tougher and a lot more resilient both in and out of the ring.
PM: Yeah. You know, I think you have to have a little bit of that naturally, the stubborness and the resiliency. I think I'm born with that; that's kind of in my genetics, but you still have to react the right way. You know, sometimes you're resilient and stubborn, but you're too much over the top, and I've been over the top a lot, but I've been able to channel the energy and when it was time to fight, make sure that I won enough times in those situations where I kept myself relevant. There's losses that I took; it's hard. Let me tell you, man, it's hard to fight Miguel Cotto on Puerto Rican Day eve when he's that undefeated guy, world champion, at the time I fought him, you know. It's hard to fight Amir Khan in his first fight in America where, regardless of the fact that the fight was one-sided, it was a fight that I wasn't put there to win anyway. I mean, they weren't bringing Amir Khan here from England to get beat in his first fight, you know what I'm sayin'. It's hard to produce in those situations when you know what you've been put there for, but, you know, it's part of the learning curve. It's part of what I've been through to develop my character and to develop, you know, me as a person and as a fighter. I feel like I've always been very, very talented. I feel like people look at my knockout record and they say, "Oh, if only he could punch." In reality, I'm not that light of a puncher. In reality, early on in your career is when you get all the knockouts and early on in my career, I had four hand surgeries; four on my right hand, you know what I'm sayin', so when I was fighting opponents that I was supposed to knock out, I had to finish a lot of fights one-handed and I was still winning them. Even that developed my character, knowing that you have one hand and you're fighting another man who has two hands. Regardless if you know you're more talented than him, you can't use all your talent there because you only have one hand. So getting through fights with a poker face, getting through fights without panicking when you're left one-handed, even if it's not at the world-class level, it developed my character there too; it developed me as a man, as a fighter. It's all these expereinces that made me stronger and I think, at the end of the day, they prepare you for the bigger fights. People think, "Oh, if Paulie could punch." In reality, man, I mean, the fighters that I'm fighting now, you know, you're fighting world-class fighters now; you're not going to stop those guys anyway. Most fights between two world-class fighters don't end in knockouts. They just don't. Most of them go the distance, you know. I'm healthy enough now, but you're not gonna just see world-class fighters knock each other out that easily. It happens. I'm not going to tell you I punch like Mike Tyson because I don't, but it happens that people do get knockouts in world-class fights. But even guys that can punch go the distance in world-class fights. That's the way it is, you know, when you're evenly matched world-class fighters.
BT: When people say that a fighter isn't a big puncher, I think that's a testament to just how good they really are if they can compete and be successful at the top level without having that knockout power. Pernell Whitaker is a perfect example of that.
PM: I agree 100%. I think I've been put into positions to where I had to learn my craft, and even that was trial and error. Let's face it, look at any of my fights in 2008; I looked like a regressing fighter, you know what I'm sayin', so it was trial and error. That was a situation I had to get out of. It wasn't until the Ricky Hatton fight that I lost and that I got out of that situation, and then suddenly, you saw a new fighter in the first Juan Diaz fight, you know. It wasn't that I was a new fighter; it was just a training situation that wasn't right for me, you know what I'm sayin'. So a lot of it is trial and error, man. I feel like a lot of fighters make excuses and you can look at them as excuses or you can look at them as reasons. Here's the thing, every time I've given people an excuse for why something happened, I've gone and corrected that problem, that thing that I used as an excuse. And each time I've gone and corrected it, you know what's happened? I've risen again. I've come back again. In reality, I proved myself right every time, you know what I mean. When something goes wrong and I say, "You know what, guys? It went wrong because of this," people say, "Oh, you know what? He doesn't want to put the blame on himself." To a degree, you're always to blame a little bit because you hire the people you hire and you go with the people you go with, you know what I'm sayin', you make the final decisions. But each time I've made a mistake, I've said, "This is the mistake that happened. This is the responsible party." It may not always have been me; I may not always have said, "Hey, it was all on me," but when I made those changes, did I not always come up and rise again? It leads you to realize I know what I'm talking about. At the end of the day, people just hate to be wrong. People just want to say that, "Oh, you know what? You gotta blame yourself." You know what? It's part of being a winner not to want to blame yourself. If you're gonna accept defeat, you're not really a competitor. But a lot of guys lie to themselves. A lot of guys make excuses and then, you know what, nothing changes. Every time I've made that excuse, something's changed. I've gotten to the root of the problem and I've changed it, you know way I'm sayin', all the way to the point of trial and error, trial and error, trial and error, because nobody be teaching anything in this business, you gotta learn on your own; trial and error, trial and error, trial and error to the point where now I'm here. I've made enough trial and error mistakes to where I'm here and I've got the best team, man; I've got the strongest team from top to bottom. I've got the best situation that I've always wanted since I've been a pro, you know. It maximizes your performances. You're able to get the best out of yourself when you're in that position. People don't understand that either. When you're in the best position possible, you maximize your own talent and get the best out of you as opposed to other situations where you may not get the best of what you're able to give, you know.
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