Juan Diaz has refused to have a rematch with Paulie “Magic Man” Malignaggi. On August 22 in Houston Texas, Malignaggi and Diaz fought a “Fight of the Year” type of fight. It was back and forth the entire match. Diaz was trying to get inside, while Paulie was sticking his jab and moving. Despite the close nature of the fight, and most fans and experts alike thought Malignaggi had done enough in the fight to get the win, unfortunately the ringside judges did not see things that way and awarded the fight to Diaz in an astonishingly lopsided unanimous decision.

It was (and is) widely believed that when a fighter (Malignaggi) goes into Texas (Houston) and fights a hometown fighter (Diaz) that it is hard to get a fair shake. Now, if that’s what happened in this fight has yet to be determined, but the simple fact that Judge Gale Van Hoy’s scorecard read 118-110 Diaz added fuel to the fire.

While I’m not a big fan of Malignaggi, (I feel he could be a much better fighter if he strung his punches together more, instead of his current style) he clearly was the victim of a hometown decision. Like him or not, what’s fair is fair, and these two should go at it again.