Note to the fight world – don’t post a pic on the social network insinuating that you knocked down Paulie Malignaggi in training; no good will come of it. The former two-division world champion spoke recently with anchor Duke Castiglione on Fox 5’s Sports Xtra, and had nothing nice to say.
“He was frustrated from getting beaten up,” said Malignaggi. “That was a shove down, a push down. … I think at the end of the day sparring should stay in the gym. I wouldn’t have went around talking about how I beat up Conor McGregor on Tuesday if I wasn’t forced to.”
Malignaggi was asked if McGregor can fight. He replied that he’s an MMA champion and of course can fight. But McGregor’s ability to box is another matter.
“As far as boxing is concerned, I’m not going to tell you he can’t box,” said the retired boxer. “He understands what he wants to do, and how he wants to do it. But he’s got to progress. There’s things he’s got to come along with. And it’s not so easy to come along that fast all this way through.
My problem with Conor is his arrogance. His arrogance is to the point where he can’t progress. He can’t learn. He just wants a bunch of yes men around him. He doesn’t want to be told that he’s doing something wrong. He doesn’t want to be told that he needs to make progress, or he needs to change certain things. Whatever he’s doing, he just wants to be told how great he’s doing.
Malignaggi said he was friends with Mayweather, and that Money was okay with him helping prepare McGregor. And he said he did not and would not talk to Mayweather about how it went.
“I won’t do it that way,” said Malignaggi. “I have an ethical side to me. See I’m not like Conor McGregor. Even if I knocked down Conor McGregor and I had a picture of it, I wouldn’t post it on social media.”
Malignaggi said he had called out McGregor earlier in the year trying to build interest in a boxing match, and that a felt a grudge when he showed up to spar.
“He’s a little bit of a weird guy that way,” said Malignaggi. “You mature past that at a certain age. … My problem is with the way he treats people, the way he treats the other sparring partners. He’s a bit on on the cheap side – you have a $100 million fight, I think you could splurge a little bit more on training camp, especially the way you treat the sparring partners, and their living quarters and what not.”
The former champ said he did not negotiate at all, and wanted what ever the other sparring partners were getting.
“I assumed things were at least on the moderate living conditions, and they weren’t,” he said. “Once you are part of seven and eight figure purses – nine figure purses in his case – you understand how to treat the training camp, and how to properly budget it, without being too cheap, without over spending. There’s people involved, there’s a team involved. I’ve never seen such a cheap guy in my life. I was blown away by the treatment this guy gave everybody. But he rented himself a Lamborghini. He made sure he rented himself a Lamborghini in Vegas.”
Conor McGregor boxes Floyd Mayweather on August 26.
