OK so Eggs and Paper Bags would not lose any sleep over these guy's Punching Power, but they could certainly turn them inside out with their pure Boxing ability, the Malignaggi world class roller-coaster ride is still fresh in the memory, Hedge Lewis however had a similar Roller-coaster career, (without a Fragmented world title Bauble ) in arguably a tougher era, Hedge pushed Jose Napoles all the way in their first encounter, if not the second, swapped victories against Ernie Lopez, and took the unbeaten record of future Jr Middle Champ Oscar "Shotgun" Albarado, Hedge also gain draws with Westen and Palomino, both were no strangers to a late stoppage by a british standard bearer, Hedge against Stracey and Paulie against Hatton and Kahn..but both at their best took a lot of stopping, in perhaps one for the connoisseurs, and almost certainly slated for the distance... No time to Hedge your bets...Hedgemon or Paulie ?
I really liked Hedgemon, a solid top ten boxer if not quite championship timber, and Paulie at his best might have shown abit more overall. To me Lewis win over Albarodo and even up matches with Ernie, along with what I think should have been a second bout loss to Raphael Rodrigues, make a clear picture of him compared to Paulie, just a half spot below.
Lewis was a fine fighter with good skills, Malignaggi a mediocre one with a sloppy limited skillset best suited to ugly spoiling. Lewis would outbox him from the outside, far too sharp there, and Paulie is hardly the kind of fighter to take advantage of Lewis' weaknesses in strength, power and durability. btw i wouldn't count Lewis fights with Rodriguez against him too much, he was clearly on the downside after the Napoles rematch.Though did still give a fine effort against Palomino.
