FanHouse Paulie Malignaggi

Paulie Malignaggi heavily criticized the judges following his controversial unanimous decision loss to Juan Diaz last month. From his post-fight interview with HBO's Max Kellerman to the post-fight press conference, Malignaggi wasn't afraid of voicing his displeasure with the politics that have plagued boxing for years.

When FanHouse recently spoke to Malignaggi, he was still fired up over the loss. The 28-year-old native of Brooklyn, N.Y., said he's been promised a rematch against Diaz and is hopeful it will happen on the East Coast. The full video interview is below.

Paulie Malignaggi had reason to be angry after losing to Juan Diaz in their 12-round clash for the NABO junior welterweight championship Saturday night.

It was his first major bout in nearly a year, his last defeat coming at the hands of Ricky Hatton in embarrassing fashion last November. Malignaggi had something to prove to the Houston crowd and observers watching on HBO's Boxing After Dark -- that he could still box with the best of them.

He proved just that, controlling a large portion of the fight with sharp jabs and quick combinations. Only the judges didn't see it that way at all.

After Ricky Hatton defeated Paulie Malignaggi on Saturday night, attention immediately turned to a possible 2009 superfight between Hatton and the winner of the December 6 Manny Pacquiao-Oscar De La Hoya fight.

But for Pacquiao's part, he's not thinking about Hatton just yet.

"I watched the fight between Hatton and Malignaggi," Pacquiao told me today. "I'm ready to fight Hatton but right now I'm just focused on my next fight and I don't want to do something that would affect my training for my next fight."

Still, Pacquiao, who is widely regarded as the world's top pound-for-pound boxer, said he expects that his first fight of 2009 will be at junior welterweight, which just happens to be Hatton's weight class.

After beating Paulie Malignaggi on Saturday night, Ricky Hatton has just about cleared out the 140-pound weight class in boxing. But immediately after the fight, the MGM Grand was buzzing with speculation about whether Hatton would move up or down in weight, or whether another fighter would move to 140 pounds to challenge Hatton.

Count former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis as one who thinks Hatton's next opponent should be Manny Pacquiao. If Pacquiao beats Oscar De La Hoya in two weeks, Lewis said after calling Hatton-Malignaggi on HBO, Pacquiao-Hatton needs to happen.

Manchester, England's world junior welterweight champion Ricky Hatton defeated Brooklyn's Paulie Malignaggi with an 11th-round TKO tonight in Las Vegas, retaining his Ring Magazine and IBO titles.

Malignaggi revealed a fairly dull boxing style, doing a lot of clinching and landing a lot of jabs that didn't have much power on them. Hatton was beating him all night long (on my scorecard he won nine of the first 10 rounds), and in the 11th round Malignaggi's corner threw in the towel.

In the ring afterward Malignaggi shoved his trainer, Buddy McGirt, showing anger that McGirt had stopped the fight. But the reality is, Malignaggi had no chance of winning this fight. Hatton is the better fighter -- and the best fighter in the world at 140 pounds.

Hatton improves his record to 45-1, with 36 knockouts. Malignaggi falls to 25-2.

Welcome to the FanHouse live blog of tonight's junior welterweight world title fight between Ricky Hatton and Paulie Malignaggi.

We'll have live scoring and round-by-round updates of the main event, and we'll also discuss all things boxing.

The live blog begins below.

World junior welterweight champion Ricky Hatton will fight No. 1 contender Paulie Malignaggi tonight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Here they are at the weigh-in:



It's clear that Hatton does, indeed, have a home-crowd advantage, even though he's a Brit and Malignaggi is American. With about 10,000 loyal fans making the trip from Manchester, England to Las Vegas, Hatton shows again that he's the only fighter in the world who can be guaranteed of having the crowd on his side no matter where he fights.

Ring Magazine junior welterweight champion Ricky Hatton says he isn't looking past Saturday night's fight with Paulie Malignaggi. But he also says he has an idea for who he'd like to fight next.

Asked today about his thoughts on the December 6th fight between Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya, Hatton said, "I would absolutely love to fight the winner of that."

Hatton sounded particularly interested in fighting Pacquiao, whose size and style would make a fight against Hatton particularly interesting.

When world junior welterweight boxing champion Ricky Hatton fought Floyd Mayweather in Las Vegas last year, American fans were amazed by how devoted his fan base was: Some 35,000 people made the trip from Hatton's home town of Manchester, England, to Vegas, and they made the MGM Grand rock with their boisterous soccer-like songs and chants.

Hatton is fighting at the MGM Grand again on Saturday night when he defends his title against Paulie Malignaggi, and although he doesn't expect to have quite as many fans in attendance, he told me today that he does expect to have a home-crowd advantage, even though he's fighting an American on American soil.

Boxing is a sport on the decline in the United States, a sport that's not as popular as it used to be and that doesn't capture the imaginations of young people.

But the American boxer Paulie Malignaggi has a simple idea for how to change that: Promote boxers like himself.

Malignaggi, who will fight Ricky Hatton on Saturday night for the world junior welterweight championship, told me today that young American boxers like himself need to get more attention from promoters and the media, who focus too much (in Malignaggi's view) on older boxers and boxers from other countries.