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Paulie Malignaggi shows off broken hands after bare knuckle fight with Artum Lobov

Malignaggi, who has a long history of hand injuries, not surprisingly injured both hands this past weekend.

By Wil Esco
BT Sport Boxing and Ultimate Boxxer Press Conference Photo by Jack Thomas/Getty Images

You know, when Paulie Malignaggi first announced that he would be fighting Artum Lobov in a bare knuckle boxing match my first thought was: “how in the hell is that gonna work?” Even inside the boxing ring Malignaggi had a long, documented history of repeatedly breaking his hands with gloves on, so I had no idea how he expected to get through a bare knuckle contest.

It turns out those concerns were perfectly reasonable as Malignaggi seriously injured both his left and right hand over the weekend, in a decision loss to Lobov. Malignaggi has since taken to social media to share some images of his brutalized hands.

View this post on Instagram

Life is sometimes about being adventurous and trying new things. Many thought I was crazy for trying my hand at bare knuckle combat and while unfortunately I may not have been born with very durable hands, it is still an experience I get to look back on and say I lived it. People have always had very little expectations of me in my life but I can proudly say I've always fought my way to a better life. In life we all have obstacles and I've always been driven most when faced with adversity. In the end, despite my brittle hands (4 surgeries on my right hand) I have been able to accomplish more as mainly a 1 handed fighter than most fighters accomplish with 2 hands. And I did it with no shortcuts and having fought some amazing fighters, travelled to some amazing places and met some amazing people along the way. You always wonder if as you get older you still have the ability to dig down when things get tough. After 2 rounds Saturday night I sat in my corner now knowing I would be a 1 handed fighter for the remainder of this fight and I am proud I continued on and showed myself I still had a willingness to dig deep when faced with adversity as I found myself once again in a familiar predicament of having a damaged hand with a determined opponent across the ring coming to rip my head off yet now I was competing in a new form of combat. I assure you its not an enviable position but I'm glad I stayed true to myself as a man and as a fighter in the moment and continued to fight despite having to obviously adjust my strategy. Respect to @rushammer who always shows up to fight and give his best no mater what day or place or at what weight and respect to him for the fight on Saturday. Obviously I feel like I won the fight but that is in no way meant as a disrespect to him. I hope he can take the momentum he gained from this result and make plenty of money for himself and his family in his career . Here are some pics of my hands after Saturday nights fight . @bareknucklefc

A post shared by Paul Malignaggi (@paulmalignaggi) on

Now I have to say that I completely empathize with Malignaggi in this situation. Really. Already down a side piece, now losing two functional hands is going to make it extremely difficult to handle the business below the belt, if you know what I mean — and that’s just on top of what is almost certain to be an unceremonious end to his fighting career. Luckily Malignaggi still has a good gig over at Showtime.

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