Paulie Malignaggi Reveals ‘Dirty Stuff’ Conor McGregor Did In Sparring
The back-and-forth between former world champion boxer Paulie Malignaggi and UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor hasn’t ended just yet.
Malignaggi was brought in as a sparring session to help McGregor prepare for his Aug. 26 boxing match against Floyd Mayweather, but he left the camp after Team McGregor released pictures that he wasn’t fond of.
A video was also released by UFC President Dana White in which some have claimed that McGregor knocked Malignaggi down.
Malignaggi, however, recently said that the Irishman did a lot of ‘dirty stuff’ during sparring:
“Rules are different in mixed martial arts than they are in boxing and he wanted to know what he’s doing wrong and what he’s doing right and what not so every single sparring session he had, [Hall of Fame referee] Joe Cortez was there,” Malignaggi told Colin Cowhered on The Herd.”
“One thing Conor has to understand – and you see that in that clip that they sent out – it wasn’t so much that he’s landing shots because most of the shots are missing. If anything, they’ve shot themselves in the foot because all the dirty stuff he does that the referee will actually warn him for. In that particular sparring session, there’s no judges, but he lost two points from that particular sparring session for fouls, for rabbit punching and hitting behind the head and pushing behind the head.”
Malignaggi even went as far to say that McGregor could get himself ‘disqualified’ if he doesn’t change his tactics:
“What he really has to learn is to try to keep it within the rules because he’s a little bit confused as to what he’s doing in there. He’s a little bit confused, especially on the inside as you can see on that tape. He’s trying to grab and push the head down. Inside fighting in boxing is very different from inside fighting in mixed martial arts. You can’t grab. You actually have to know what you’re doing on the inside. . .
“I think Conor has to learn to turn punches over but more than that he needs to learn how to keep it clean. He’s gonna get himself disqualified if he keeps punching behind the head and pushing the head down. He needs to understand that inside fighting in boxing is different than inside fighting in mixed martial arts.”
What do you make of Malignaggi’s comments?
