Paulie Malignaggi Goes Off On ‘No Balls’ Conor McGregor Fighting Khabib
Paulie Malignaggi goes off on former UFC lightweight and featherweight champion Conor McGregor about anything he does in the fight game is nothing new.
Their History
The bad blood between Malignaggi and McGregor has been well documented. Malignaggi was brought in as a sparring partner to help McGregor prepare for Floyd Mayweather last year.
As a result of this, Malignaggi was upset with some of the images and videos of posted on McGregor’s social media accounts from their sparring sessions in which ‘Magic Man’ felt he was depicted in a bad light due to the fact that one of the pictures showed McGregor standing over him on the canvas.
McGregor ultimately lost to Mayweather in the tenth round by TKO after being hit by a series of punches against the ropes. Although he lost the fight, the UFC champion surpassed many expectations in his boxing debut.
Paulie Malignaggi Goes Off
McGregor recently posted a photo from where he knocked down Malignaggi while they were sparring. This has led to Malignaggi not only reacting to it but to also giving his prediction for the McGregor’s next fight. The former UFC champ is slated to challenge Nurmagomedov for the lightweight title at the UFC 229 pay-per-view event.
“Here’s the thing about Conor, I’ve said that he has no balls and he has a problem with this fight,” said Malignaggi (transcript courtesy of MMA Fighting). “Khabib is not a guy that will put you out of your misery. Remember the Nate Diaz fight, when he shot in on Nate Diaz and got submitted? Nate Diaz is a guy you don’t want to wind up on the ground with because he’s a black belt in jiu-jitsu. He’ll submit you right away.
The Past
If you’re gonna fight Nate Diaz, you have to keep the fight standing up. In that fight against Nate Diaz though, he’s getting pummeled in round two. He’s probably gonna get pummeled for the rest of the fight, so what does he do?
He needs a way out of it because he doesn’t want to get beat up for four straight rounds. So what does he do? He goes, ‘If I take this fight to the ground, Nate will submit me and then it won’t look like I quit.’ Because if you’re fighting Nate Diaz, common sense tells you that you don’t want to wind up on the ground. Conor is the one that took that fight to the ground. He shot in looking to take that fight to the ground. Why did he do that? Because he’s trying to quit. If Nate puts him in a submission, he can quit and then it looks like ‘Oh well, I had to tap out.’ But really the decision was made when he shot in that he was quitting already.
Khabib’s Strategy
“Now, Khabib is not a guy that’s known as a submission guy. Now, I’m not a mixed martial arts expert, but Khabib is more of a ground and pound guy. Which means you don’t have the option to be submitted really because Khabib will just keep you on the ground and punish you and beat you and beat you and beat you.
Now, granted, Conor has some skills standing up a little bit and maybe Khabib will have a hard time getting it to the ground. But if the fight ends up on the ground, it’s only a beating for Conor. So how is a guy with no balls gonna take a good beating for five rounds when he looks to quit as soon as he gets uncomfortable? That’s the question of the day really.”
Expectations
The UFC 229 pay-per-view event is slated to take place on Saturday, October 6, 2018 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The main card will air on pay-per-view at 10 p.m. ET while the preliminary card will air on FOX Sports 1 at 8 p.m. ET and the promotion’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass.
Malignaggi did give some insight into the fight as he thinks that McGregor will be looking for the easiest way out. There’s a reason for that belief as in the past, elite wrestlers have had success against McGregor. Obviously, Nurmagomedov may be the best in MMA in regards to wrestling.
“The fact is he’s gonna look for a way out of that fight too,” Malignaggi concluded. “Look at round five of the Diaz rematch, he’s literally running for his life. With the fight hanging in the balance, who runs for the entire final round?
He was given the decision in a close decision that could have went either way but who takes that chance though? These are all character flaws of a man with no balls. When you’re a fighter you can tell right away who has character and who doesn’t. The guy has none so he tries to play it up in other ways so he covers up the fact that he has no balls.”
