Paulie Malignaggi Opens Up On Sparring Issues With Conor McGregor
The onslaught of heated words from one boxer continues.
Paulie Malignaggi has given his side of the story on the recent issues he had with UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor. Of course, the final straw that was broken saw Malignaggi leave training camp after photos of their sparring sessions were made public. The photos made it look like Malignaggi was knocked down, but he says there are other things outside the ring that led to that decision.
According to the boxer, he claims that the reason he joined McGregor’s training camp was to simply to help prepare him for his boxing match with Floyd Mayweather.
In an extensive interview on “The MMA Hour,” Malignaggi explained what happened while not holding back on everything that bothered him about his McGregor camp experience.
“It’s something that I didn’t really ask for,” Malignaggi said. “I showed up with the best intentions in camp. At a certain point, you start to realize your being used as a pawn where somebody is trying to get ahead at your expense and not through your help. My intention was to try to get Conor ahead through my help in camp. … I realized pretty early it was always going to be at my expense.”
Malignaggi’s time with the UFC champion included two sparring sessions. Malignaggi reflected on the camp and noted that things didn’t feel right as soon as he landed in Las Vegas. He was told by McGregor’s camp as soon as he arrived in the city that they would be sparring eight rounds the next day, which was odd for him due to the fact that he had just taken a cross-country flight.
“It’s in a dilapidated neighborhood. It’s a rundown house,” Malignaggi said. “I mean, yeah, it works. But it’s not really what you expect. … It reminded me of some kind of crack house that had been barely renovated a little bit.”
Their first sparring session was on July 20th, and that is when McGregor posted a photo of himself showboating with his hands behind his back. Malignaggi said McGregor got the better of him a little bit due to bad conditioning. According to the boxer, McGregor needed more work to sharpen his intelligence.
“I was a little ticked off, but it wasn’t really like offensive,” Malignaggi said. “I had done that stuff to him, too. They just didn’t rub me the right away,” Malignaggi said. “It wasn’t like I was mad, but I said, ‘There’s something fishy about these people.’ They put me in some kind of crack house, they had me spar eight rounds after I just got off of a plane the day after, he put up this picture. I wasn’t mad, but I was starting to become guarded.”
“This guy is one of the biggest dirtbags I’ve ever met in my life – bar none,” he said. “I was amazed at what a dirtbag this person is. I don’t care if we never speak again. My life is fine if I never see Conor McGregor again. …
“I was dumbfounded by the way things were. It’s just about status with him. It makes me doubt if he ever really went through a tough time in his life like they try to say he did. If somebody went through that tough a time in life just a few years ago, they wouldn’t treat people who were not as fortunate as him that bad.”
Now that everything has happened, he is just glad that the experience of the camp is over and he is looking ahead to new adventures.
“People are going to have their own speculation about how this happened,” he said. “I have my own life. I don’t need this. I don’t need to be part of this. I didn’t ask for this. I went into it with the best intentions. Yeah, I knew we’d be competing, and it would be at a high level. But I was also excited about that. I was excited to make new friends. I was excited to be a part of something.
“I always get excited about new adventures, because that’s the kind of person I am. It was definitely an experience; it just wasn’t the experience I thought.”
The biggest fight of the year is set to go down on August 26th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The bout will air on pay-per-view and is expected to be the most lucrative prize fight of all time.
