Conor McGregor's Sparring Session With Paulie Malignaggi Was Apparently A Brawl For The Ages
MMAFighting- There has been little information brought to the forefront about Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather’s sparring sessions ahead of their boxing bout on Aug. 26 at the T-Mobile Arena. However, in his latest column for the Irish News, commonwealth youth silver medalist and McGregor sparring partner, Tiernan Bradley, claimed that McGregor and Paulie Malignaggi’s sparring session resembled a “full-on fight”. According to the 20-year-old, McGregor told his team before hand that he wanted to fight Malignaggi, not spar him.
“You can see he’s still a class operator, and it was an interesting spar to watch – more a full on fight actually. Conor told us all when Paulie came into camp ‘this is not a spar, I want to fight him. I’m ready for a war’.”
After his first sparring session with McGregor, Malignaggi appeared on The Jim Rome Show and said that the Irishman doesn’t have ‘Oh my God’ power. Bradley thinks that Malignaggi should watch what he says, as ‘The Notorious’ will be looking to knock him out the next time they spar.
“Paulie was talking to him in between rounds, trying to give him advice, but then he was getting slapped in the face,” recalled Bradley.
“I saw what he said about Conor’s power, and he’s playing a bit of a dangerous game because he still has more spars to go with Conor, and Conor will be out there to knock him out. He’ll want to show him he has ‘oh my God’ power.”
LET’S GOOOOO! That’s what I fucking love to hear! All of this! The fact that McGregor looked at Paulie Malignaggi and said, “I want to fight that two weight world champion. Not spar, fight.” tells me he’s taking this VERY seriously. I mean, I didn’t need any more confirmation, I knew that already, the guy has more belief in himself than anyone I’ve ever seen (outside of Octagon Bob), but a lot of the haters and losers were saying he’s just here to collect a paycheck and lose. Malignaggi’s no Mayweather, but he is a VERY legitimate fighter with a great chin and quick fists, and all reports have been that McGregor’s been competitive with him. The picture above showcasing Paulie’s mangled face suggests that Conor landed quite a bit, too, so bam, I’m convinced McGregor can land the perfect shot on Floyd. It’ll only take one. I also love Malignaggi going on Jim Rome and downplaying Conor McGregor’s power while Tiernan Bradley is like, “Uhhh, he better watch his fucking mouth because Conor will knock him out.”
Featured on Barstool
McGregor is knocking this old fool out, buy a shirt.
P.S. Win or lose, I really hope they’re filming every second of this camp for a documentary one day even if it’s not in the one coming out this October. I know sparring is typically off limits, but let’s just call this a one off and release it. McGregor won’t be around in boxing/MMA much longer, it can’t do that much harm.