Magic Man’s Fake Hair Nearly Makes His IBF Title Disappear

In Saturday’s Ricky Hatton-Juan Lazcano undercard match Brooklyn junior welterweight proved that you can’t hit what you can’t see. The problem wasn’t the head speed of his opponent South African Lovemore N’Dou; N’Dou was relatively stationary. No, the problem was Malignaggi’s recently implanted 18-inch-long hair extensions.

In the first round of the IBF junior welterweight title bout The Magic Man more resembled a Komondor dog (pictured to the right) than a boxer. His long twisted fake locks escaped their weak rubber band-hold less than a minute into the fight. Paulie spent the next two minutes fighting through his heavily-obscuring hair. While the bush league Versus Network went to commercial the fight’s essential storyline played out as his corner wrapped the extensions in sturdy athletic tape.

The tape held the hair admirably until the eighth when the Milli Vanilli-style braids escaped their soft polycotton blend captor. The referee then inexplicably stopped the fight allowing Paulie to regroup and have his hair re-taped. The fight wouldn’t have been halted for a cut or abrasion so why did it stop for hair?

Before the ninth started, and while Versus again went to commercial, The Magic Man’s corner sheared off the hair with heavy-duty scissors. It couldn’t have happened too soon. I felt Malignaggi had dropped the previous two rounds because of his sartorial distractions. After the fight he stated that he had also broken his hand around that time.

Considering N’Dou’s late round domination I reasoned that Lovemore had done enough to win the fight, scoring it 115-113. One of the three judges agreed with me while the other too scored it 116-112 and 116-113 for The Magic Man.

Regardless the 27-year-old American dodged a major self-inflicted bullet in Manchester. It is unimaginable that any fighter would think it was a good idea to get hair extensions before a fight. It is even a dumber decision than Mike Tyson choice to get a facial tattoo less than a week before facing Clifford Etienne.

All week Malignaggi has been asking Ricky Hatton for a fight. Hatton must now be licking his chops to face Paulie given The Magic Man’s unprofessional and juvenile approach as well as his asinine disrespect for his own body and the sport of boxing. He’s definitely not Juan Lazcano who proved in the main event to be a disciplined tough warrior that gave Ricky everything he could handle.

Photo Source: Newscom.com