Former Two-Weight Boxing Champ Set To Join Conor McGregor’s Fight Camp
Conor McGregor has made yet another move in regards to his preparation for his scheduled boxing bout with Floyd Mayweather Jr. next month (Sat. August 26, 2017).
The UFC lightweight champ is set to make his professional boxing debut against, arguably, the greatest off all time in undefeated 49-0 boxing legend Floyd Mayweather. The highly-anticipated superfight just wrapped up a four stop World Tour to promote the match-up, in which McGregor and Mayweather got to show off their gifts of gab as they engaged in a slew of trash-talk on stage in front of fight fans.
Serving as an analyst on the Showtime pre and post shows for the first three stops of the World Tour was none other than former two-weight boxing champ Paulie Malignaggi, who had been unsure if he was going to get the opportunity to be a part of “The Notorious One’s” training camp for the Mayweather fight.
On yesterday’s (Mon. July 17, 2017) episode of The MMA Hour, however, Malignaggi revealed that he now is set to head out to Las Vegas tomorrow and begin helping Team McGregor prepare for August 26th (quotes via MMA Fighting):
“We’ve discussed a couple potential things, but I don’t know (how long I’ll be out there), it’ll depend on them,” Malignaggi said. “I’ve always been in camp that’s been my training camp. I’ve never been in somebody else’s training camp. Even when I was a prospect and I helped champions get ready for their fights, it was mostly at home where I came up in Gleason’s Gym in New York, where there’s so many champions training there.
“A lot of times, I sparred with them a lot during their training camps in Gleason’s, but I was never a guy who was brought into camp as a sparring partner where I had to leave my house, where I had to leave home.”
Malignaggi admitted that when he first caught wind that McGregor had obtained his boxing license he attempted to get under the Irishman’s skin in hopes of landing a big-money bout against the MMA superstar. Now Malignaggi has since retired from active competition and instead look forward to having a ‘knock’ with McGregor privately inside the gym:
“When Conor got his boxing license, all the boxers looked at it like, ‘wow, this is a big paycheck here, and it’s a guy who’s probably a little bit (more) limited than your basic world-class boxer,’ so everybody’s trying to get in there. So me, using my trash-talking ability that I have, me knowing that I’m one of the better known fighters in the business, I kind of put myself at the forefront,” Malignaggi said.
“I tried to talk a little bit of trash and get under his skin and try to see if he would take the bait. So the trash talk was done about six months ago, I was looking to get the fight.”
“I’ve since lost my last fight and retired, so that’s actually out the window,” he continued. “But I think that basically what they’re looking at and what he’s talking about is probably the trash talking way back then, and yeah, we’re going to have a knock in the gym.”
“But listen, from a fighter’s perspective, you have in a knock in the gym anyway. Even if you’re best friends with the guy you’re sparring, you’re still going to have a knock in there. That’s just the way sparring goes, especially at a world-class championship level in the gym at sparring. I’ve never been a part of a training camp where sparring was light.”
