Sam Eggington Knocks Out Paulie Malignaggi at the 02 Arena – Boxing News

By Jeffrey “Italian Medallion” Cellini

At the O2 Arena, in London, England yesterday, Sam “The Savage” Eggington, 20-3, 12 KO’s scored the biggest victory of his career when he stopped former two division world champion Paulie Malignaggi, 36-8 7 KO’s in the eighth round of their scheduled 12-round welterweight clash. The 36-year old Malignaggi, who won a ten-round decision over Gabe Bracero in his last fight, will likely call it quits at this stage of his career.

The bigger Eggington started strong against Malignaggi, landing consistently on the wily veteran. In the third and fourth rounds, the former champion held his composure and began to rally against the 23-year old British-native. However, by the sixth round, Malignaggi’s face began to swell from the accumulation of punches from “The Savage”; however, the “Magic Man” rocked Eggington with a solid right hand and then unloaded a flurry of shots that badly wobbled Eggington.

Despite some minor success, Malignaggi struggled with his counterpart’s reach advantage and was hurt from a big right hand to the body that sent him down to canvas in the eighth round. Unable to beat the count, Malignaggi stayed on the mat as the referee counted him out.

“It was one of those body shots where it gets you perfectly. I was totally fine, but for about 15 seconds I just couldn’t breathe. It gets you perfectly. It’s a shame, because I wanted so badly to go out with a win in this arena,” Malignaggi told Sky Sports after the fight.

“But Sam makes it — if there’s a silver lining, I could see him improving during the fight. So if I’m gonna get beat, this is par for the course. I’m the kind of opponent that makes him better. If I can’t get the win, I’m glad I at least played my role in his progression”.

Paulie Malignaggi has a record of 5-4,1 KO in world title fights and a record of 5-7,1 KO against former or current world titlists. He has defeated Lovemore N’dou (twice), Juan Diaz, Vyacheslav Senchenko, and Zab Judah. However, he has lost fights against Miguel Cotto, Ricky Hatton, Juan Diaz, Amir Khan, Adrien Broner, Shawn Porter, and Danny Garcia .In 2007, Malignaggi won the IBF Super Lightweight championship against N’dou, and in 2012, he defeated Senchenko to win the WBA Welterweight championship.

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