Some belated thoughts on last Saturday's Malignaggi-N'Dou card.

Sorry guys.... I know this is a bit late and all thoughts are now on the Hatton-Castillo fight. But I was away on vacation and just got back and watched this card I'd let recording.

First of all, I was thrilled to once again watch the Cotto-Judah fight. I was elated. Cotto proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he belongs with boxing's elite. It was a war between two warriors and, even though I've never been a Judah fan, he won me over with his bravery and guts in that fight. He wasn't such a jerk before or after the fight, either. So kudos to Judah, but bigger kudos to my main man, Cotto. What a fighting machine!!

I thought the Direll-Stevens fight was a joke. I know a lot of people don't like Larry Merchant. But I gotta hand it to him for calling it like it was. What I couldn't understand was Lennox Lewis foolishly defending Direll's blatant running all over the ring. I thought Larry said it best when he stated that "the paying customers were giving their reaction to the fight". And they were booing the sh*t out of both of them.

Malignaggi-N'Dou was a better fight. I laughed when Lewis continued defending his opinion by comparing Malignaggi's style to Direll's. Well, IMO, Paulie was running BUT he was throwing punches as well. Whereas Direll was running like a cheap hooker at a pimp convention. No comparison there.

Anyway, I know Merchant can sound obnoxious at times, but he doesn't pull any punches, and I'm gonna miss him when he's gone.

All in all, between the Cotto-Judah replay and the live fights, it was good night of boxing.

Luckily I didn't see the Direll - Stevens bout. The Malignaggi-N'dou fight was ok, but it sure wasn't very competitive and thus I didn't find it very compelling. At first, it looked like it might be a decent fight - I believe N'dou landed a couple of decent punches in the early going, but after the 1st two rounds Malignaggi made some good adjustments and completely outclassed N'dou

I found myself fast-forwarding more and more through the Dirrell fight, and became more interested in Merchant's critiques than in the fight itself. Lennox was irritating the sh*t out of me, with the way he was defending Dirrell's running all over the ring.