Paulie Malignaggi baffled by BKFC 6 loss to Artem Lobov: 'Bush league' judges scored blood
Paulie Malignaggi was not happy with the judges’ scorecards after suffering a unanimous-decision loss to Artem Lobov in his Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship debut this past Saturday.
BKFC 6 took place in Tampa, Fla., and all three judges scored the fight 48-47, in favor of Lobov. A baffled Malignaggi went off on the judges in the post-fight press conference.
“I pretty much got the worst of everything,” Malignaggi said. “I got a (expletive) decision. I made a tic-tac-toe board out of his face with my left hand. If you look at my face, I got hit literally in one clinch. I literally in one clinch got hit – that’s it – and I took a couple of shots in that one clinch that he got me. I thought I did a pretty good job in the clinch other than that, and really nothing else landed. I was very comfortable boxing.”
The judges gave Malignaggi the first two rounds and scored the final three for Lobov.
“I think I landed more jabs and check hooks in the second half of the fight than the first part of the fight,” Malignaggi said. “Ironically, the judges gave me the first two rounds, then after three, they didn’t give me a round. Again, bush league (expletive) because I got cut in Round 3, so once the bush league (expletive) came in, they only scored my blood.”
Malignaggi said he broke his right hand in the second round but felt like he still did enough to win the fight. He believes that the only shots Lobov were able to get off were in the clinch, and other than that, he controlled the majority of the fight.
“He was getting out-boxed very easily, but now I was cut, and clearly the bush league judges scored the blood and not the actual fight,” Malignaggi said. “As the fight was winding down, I was like, ‘This ain’t so bad.’ I was controlling the action, I was controlling the tempo. I was so calm.”
“I think if I had been left with two hands and I hadn’t broken it in Round 2, I could have got off some really fresh combinations,” Malignaggi added. “I got in my groove as the fight went on – I just only had one hand.”
The frustration over the outcome left Malignaggi wondering if this was a one and done. He felt like the inexperience of the judges cost him the fight, and that everybody thought he won.
“This is also a problem when you have a state that has a fight every 50 years,” Malignaggi said. “You have judges that don’t know what the (expletive) they’re watching. They don’t know what the (expletive) they’re doing, and you get this. Everybody and their mothers thought I won this fight, but you know what? I’m also 38 years old, and I guess this is sort of a sign to say, ‘Yo, you’ve got to stop.'”
“I probably would have kept going if I won this fight.”
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