Paulie Malignaggi won world boxing titles in two weight divisions, but sparring Conor McGregor twice has given him the most publicity of his career. Notorious tweeted an image that appeared to show McGregor having knocked down Malignaggi and the boxer quit the camp in a huff, after just two sparring sessions, each lasting 12 rounds.
Another sparring partner, Ireland’s Tiernan Bradley, wrote a column about the sessions for The Irish News titled “The truth about what happened between Paulie Malignaggi and Conor McGregor’. Malignaggi thought it was suspicious he flew in one day and was sparring the next, but Bradley pointed out that McGregor did the three-country, four-city MayMac Media S*** Show, returned on Sunday, and was sparring Monday.
It’s almost a week since he left the training camp, and it was a shame to see him go. Although he was only really about for a week-and-a-half, Paulie was a good guy to have around the place.
But, having been here the whole time, some of the things he has come out with in the last seven days have taken me by surprise.
I did Paulie’s corner for the spar, their second after a feisty first encounter, and I can safely say it will be very interesting when the video comes out after the fight.
When you’re in sparring, sometimes you think you’re doing better than you are, but watching back afterwards can reveal the true nature of the spar. I’ve experienced that myself, you start to notice little things you did wrong, or maybe punches landed that you don’t remember.
Paulie came out smack talking from the start, he was saying ‘wipe that smirk off your face’ because Conor was smiling at him, that kind of thing.
Conor stayed very professional; Paulie was saying stuff and then getting hit. Conor chose his moments to talk back. There are tactics to mental warfare too, knowing when to talk, and then there’s stupidity.
It wasn’t a one-sided spar either way but I thought one was the clear winner overall and that was Conor. He was very calm, very professional and, honestly, he really impressed me on the day.
That’s just my opinion, people can make up their own minds when they see the video. Paulie has done plenty of talking, but he could be talking himself into a hole when the footage comes out after the Mayweather fight.
