Tension precedes big bout
Amir Khan's WBA light-welterweight title defence against Paulie Malignaggi will be brimming with tension at Madison Square Garden tonight after the pre-fight weigh-in ended in chaos at a Manhattan hotel on Friday night.
Champion Khan and New York challenger Malignaggi had both weighed in under the 140-pound limit at the Essex House Hotel. And when the two fighters went head to head for pictures, they touched heads and were seen arguing before they began pushing each other. No punches were thrown by the protagonists but chaos erupted as other people got involved and the stage filled with people.
"If Golden Boy had done it like they were supposed to, they told me closed to the public, but it was closed to the Paulie Malignaggi public, and there were a lot of Amir's people in there," said Malignaggi. "They started over and all hell broke loose. He'll get it on Saturday."
Golden Boy chief operation officer David Iskowitch denied the allegations from the Malignaggi camp that the weigh-in had been promoted as a public event.
"I guess what has been said is that the weigh-in was open to the public but that is absolutely not the case," Iskowitch said. "I think the majority of people there, and I don't want to impugn anyone, but they were with Amir.
"Paulie had a big group of people with him, Amir had a big group of people with him.
"We never made an announcement that this was open to the public. Find an announcement that this was open to the public.
"I don't know exactly what happened at this stage, I couldn't see it and I'm not going to blame anyone.
"All I know is that if someone is blaming us for opening this to the public, the general public was not in there.
"Fighters' teams can sometimes bring in a crew of people, that's just the way these guys move around. They move around in packs and everyone wants to be together."
Date published :
15 May 2010 - 08:38:42
