After two weeks of endless trash talk from Paulie Malignaggi towards Conor McGregor, the former two division champion finally made it known what he really wants: an opportunity to fight things out in the ring for a real fight. Malignaggi had been toying with the idea of coming out of retirement to fight McGregor, and now he’s made the desire official.
“He constantly puts me in the press with these edited videos, edited pictures and whatnot,” Paulie said during his second MMA Hour appearance in a row. “Now, it’s picked up a ton of momentum. So yeah. So now the bad blood is there. Now, we’ve gotta fight.”
Malignaggi was briefly a sparring partner for McGregor as the Irish UFC champ prepares for his August 26th superfight with Floyd Mayweather. But rough sparring sessions followed by leaked photos showing Paulie getting beat up sent the brash New Yorker into a fury that hasn’t abated after hours of media appearances to discuss the situation.
Here is the video everyone wanted to see of Conor vs Paulie Malignaggi former IBF and WBA World Champion @TheNotoriousMMA pic.twitter.com/GfFP3SKsye
— Dana White (@danawhite) August 12, 2017
On Friday, Conor McGregor fired back at Malignaggi, calling the boxer’s claims ‘concussion talk.’ UFC president Dana White also released a short clip of Conor hitting Paulie and one of the much discussed knockdown.
“I mean, they got the money there so they edited it very well,” Paulie said. “There’s a reason it probably took them about 10 days to put that out there. They had to edit it really, really well.”
“Obviously in the video, it’s a push down on my neck. In real time speed, when you’re in the middle of it you don’t know exactly what puts you off balance. Obviously, when I saw the video, I had to kind of analyze it at first and then I realized yeah it’s clearly the push down on my neck. … It’s a dirty move, but you don’t even know how to do it. He’s actually so stupid, he didn’t do it right.”
Malignaggi also widened his field of attack to Dana White on MMA Junkie Radio.
“I already know about Dana,” he said. “Dana robs the UFC fighters blind. “I’ve never met an MMA fighter that actually likes Dana or had anything good to say. I’m still looking for one. When Dana comes up in conversation, I’ve yet to hear anybody say, ‘Wow, that guy’s great.’ Or, ‘That guy treats us so good.’ Or, ‘That guy’s a good guy.’ I’m not going to hold my breath, or I might turn blue. So I would expect that.”
With a financial incentive to keep talking trash, we doubt Paulie Malignaggi is going to be done with comments like this any time soon. What do you think, Maniacs? Are Paulie’s gripes legit or is he just fishing for a red panty night?