Paulie Malignaggi blasts ‘dirtbag’ Conor McGregor
Paulie Malignaggi continues to land blows at Conor McGregor long after their sparring sessions ended.
Malignaggi, a former world champion boxer, was brought in as a sparring partner to help McGregor prepare for his fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. Malignaggi left camp last week after having issues. He complained about a photo that McGregor’s team leaked on social media, as well as a few other things, leading to his departure.
This week he continues to lob shots at the UFC champion.
“This guy is one of the biggest dirtbags I’ve ever met in my life – bar none,” Malignaggi said on The MMA Hour MOnday. “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.
Malignaggi didn’t like being used by McGregor as a tool to make the Irishman look better. Malignaggi said he wanted to help McGregor improve as a fighter, not get used and belittled by McGregor in order to build up the MMA champ’s profile.
Malignaggi also complained that McGregor’s camp was cheap with their accommodations for the fighters.
“I never tried to make things difficult for them, but I assumed things would be on a moderate living conditions. They really weren’t,” Malignaggi told FOX 5 in New York. “A little on the cheap side, like I said. I put it like this, I’ve never been part of a 100 million dollar fight, but I’ve been part of multiple fights where there’s been million dollar purses in there. So once you’ve been part of 7 and 8 figure purses — 9 figures in this case — you understand how to treat this training camp and how to properly budget it without being too cheap, but without overspending. There’s people involved, and there’s a team involved, and you need to take care of them too.”
Malignaggi is used to hiring sparring partners to help him prepare for fights, rather than the other way around. Settling into this role is probably a big adjustment for him, meaning he won’t take the kind of others might have.
Photo: Flickr/Chamber of Fear
