Tag: McGregor Mayweather World Tour

Former Boxing Champ Leaves Conor’s McGregor’s Training Camp Amidst Massive Drama

Days after former boxing champ Paulie Malignaggi and Conor McGregor met in a highly-publicized sparring session at the UFC Performance Institute in as Vegas, Nevada, Malignaggi has apparently left the McGregor camp after a late night rant against his now-former training partner. After the session reportedly got a bit ‘out of control’ according to Joe […]

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Days after former boxing champ Paulie Malignaggi and Conor McGregor met in a highly-publicized sparring session at the UFC Performance Institute in as Vegas, Nevada, Malignaggi has apparently left the McGregor camp after a late night rant against his now-former training partner.

After the session reportedly got a bit ‘out of control’ according to Joe Cortez, the referee brought in to oversee the action, Malignaggi posted on Twitter that some of the pictures of the session posted on social media were misrepresented, especially one that made him look like he had been dropped to the ground when he was allegedly pushed.

Here is the photo in question:

The Sun

Malignaggi offered his view that he fell down from a push, prodding McGregor and his camp to release the full video of their sparring session:

The respected boxer then said he came to McGregor’s camp to help him train to fight Floyd Mayweather, not to be exploited to make him look good:

Malignaggi then tried to set the record completely straight, claiming that he had ‘beat McGregor’s ass’ and wants the full video of the session posted because the time to not be petty is clearly over:

And as a code between fighters, professionals usually don’t do interviews about sparring sessions in order to keep what they saw in the gym, but when McGregor began leaking photos that were from his official photographer – the only photographer allowed in the room – he was forced to defend himself:

Malignaggi got a bit testy with a ‘fan’ who blasted him for doing the interview, noting that it wasn’t him who kicked off the media blitz:

Malignaggi continued blasting McGregor supporters, telling another to stop ‘inventing his own reality’:

Finally, Malignaggi posted a lengthy Instagram response revealing he was officially leaving McGregor’s training camp and would divulge the reasons why later:

So McGregor’s highest profile sparring partner has left his camp 22 days away from the circus-like event in Las Vegas, mainly be cause he didn’t like how he was portrayed in photographs that he believes were engineered to only show McGregor in a favorable light.

With no professional boxing matches on his record, it could be assumed that McGregor needed to puff himself up by only allowing his official photographer in the room and posting only pictures that were favorable to him.

Perhaps Malignaggi got tagged and had his pride hurt a bit too, but as the former boxing champion noted, we’ll never know until they release the full video of the sparring session, and that doesn’t seem like a likely occurrence at this time.

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Conor McGregor Reacts To Mayweather’s ‘Eight-Ounce Gloves’ Suggestion

Yesterday, boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. continued his trash talk battle with UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor by stating he was willing to go down to eight-ounce gloves for their anticipated boxing fight on August 26 from Les Vegas, Nevada. “Money” made a post on Instagram that claimed to be ‘helping’ McGregor to gain any […]

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Yesterday, boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. continued his trash talk battle with UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor by stating he was willing to go down to eight-ounce gloves for their anticipated boxing fight on August 26 from Les Vegas, Nevada.

“Money” made a post on Instagram that claimed to be ‘helping’ McGregor to gain any advantage he could for the fight with an undefeated all-time great boxing champ, as compared to his professional boxing record which contains no fights:

“Whatever advantage McGregor needs to feel more comfortable in the ring, I’m willing to accommodate. Let’s give the boxing and MMA fans what they want to see,”

A barb disguised as a concession, McGregor quickly saw through his legendary counterpart’s ruse and posted his own response on Instagram that focused on the fact he fights with four-ounce gloves and doesn’t care what they use in the fight:

‘The Notorious’ poked fun at Mayweather’s size as he often has, also adding a jab at this oft-broken hands before proclaiming he would be coming out ‘sprinting with bricks’:

“Another handy 12 rounds today. We are prepared to destroy Floyd.
Pick whatever size gloves you want as well little man. I fight with 4oz. I don’t give a fuck about the size of the glove. I am coming sprinting at you with bricks. Know that. Brittle hands.”

The UFC champ is preparing for the 12-round bout by going that full distance in training, but questions remain about the Irish megastar’s ability to truly hold up that long after he appeared to tire as his two bouts with Nate Diaz drug on. As for the glove size, the contracts have already been signed and it seems like it would be almost impossible to make any changes to the original fight agreement thus far.

The stage is set, the stipulations have been agreed upon regardless of this offer, and the combat sports has 24 days left to wait until the biggest spectacle the fight game has ever seen.

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Watch The Brand-New Official Mayweather vs. McGregor Commercial

Now that last weekend’s (Sat., July 29, 2017) blockbuster UFC 214 from Anaheim, Calif., is officially in the rearview mirror, the focus of the combat sports world will shift to the massive boxing super fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor on August 26 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The bout has been called […]

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Now that last weekend’s (Sat., July 29, 2017) blockbuster UFC 214 from Anaheim, Calif., is officially in the rearview mirror, the focus of the combat sports world will shift to the massive boxing super fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor on August 26 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

The bout has been called a farce by some and the most anticipated combat sports bout of all-time by others, but only one thing is truly certain: the fight is going to sell, and it’s going to sell big. A large part of that is due to the hype and promotion McGregor brings, his brash style somehow placing him as a smaller underdog than many of Mayweather’s recent opponents despite him never having stepped into a professional boxing match.

That outspoken, at-times controversial style of trash talk has the 49-0 Mayweather hearkening back to his early days as one of the finest talkers in the fight game, and never was that more evident than during the pair’s recent four-city world tour to promote the bout in a series of press conferences a few weeks back. With tickets now on sale, SHOWTIME Sports released the first official commercial today.

The video flaunts the wealth and lavishness of both ultra-rich superstars of their sports, something both fighters did exceptionally well during the world tour. Check out the 30-second video that touts the fight as one where ‘kings will collide’ right here:

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10 Current UFC Stars Who Fought In Boxing

How would a UFC star fare in the boxing ring? That’s the question everybody seems to be debating in the build-up to Conor McGregor’s blockbuster fight with Floyd Mayweather on August 26th, but it’s worth keeping in mind that ‘The Notorious’ is far from the first UFC fighter to have fought in the squared circle. […]

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How would a UFC star fare in the boxing ring?

That’s the question everybody seems to be debating in the build-up to Conor McGregor’s blockbuster fight with Floyd Mayweather on August 26th, but it’s worth keeping in mind that ‘The Notorious’ is far from the first UFC fighter to have fought in the squared circle.

In all fairness, the circumstances surrounding McGregor Vs Mayweather are unique. We’ve never seen anything of this magnitude before – a UFC champion at the peak of their career head to the boxing ring, let alone agreeing to face one of that sport’s all-time greats.

Nevertheless, there are a number of fighters currently fighting in the UFC who do have professional boxing bouts on their records, often from much earlier in their career’s, and in this article, we’ll take a closer look at how they did – from the good and the bad through the downright ugly.

Anderson Silva

One of MMA’s all-time greats, Anderson Silva has also tested his skills in the boxing ring twice during his combat sports career.

His pro boxing debut took place in his native Brazil all the way back in 1998 when he was just 23 years old. At the time he was only just getting started in his MMA career too, with both of his wins at the time having come during a single-night tournament a year earlier.

Despite his lack of experience, Silva was handed a tough first outing against Osmar Luiz Teixeira, a cruiserweight (200 pounds) who held an 8-2 boxing record and had finished six of his fights inside the distance.

No video or photographs exist of the fight, but officially it was recorded as a victory for Teixeira due to Silva retiring after the second round, allegedly due to body shots.

After a two year absence, Silva returned to MMA, and by 2005 had amassed a 15-3 record, but after surpisingly being released by the PRIDE organization, he briefly opted to return to the boxing ring.

This time he faced Julio Cesar de Jesus, a newcomer who would prove to be no match for Silva’s by-now seasoned striking and was finished with punches to the body and head in the second round.

It wasn’t long before Silva signed for the UFC and he would go on to achieve superstardom as their long-reigning middleweight champion, but over the years he’s also harbored an ambition to fight legendary boxer Roy Jones Jr in the ring.

However, despite both indicating their interest in the match-up, this particular super fight has never come to fruition.

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Five Reasons UFC Ratings Are Tanking In 2017

It’s no secret that the UFC is having a tough run in the first seven months of 2017. After a banner year in 2016 with multiple pay-per-view (PPV) events eclipsing the coveted one-million buy threshold, new owners WME-IMG are finding out just what it’s like to run the world’s biggest MMA promotion in a time […]

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It’s no secret that the UFC is having a tough run in the first seven months of 2017.

After a banner year in 2016 with multiple pay-per-view (PPV) events eclipsing the coveted one-million buy threshold, new owners WME-IMG are finding out just what it’s like to run the world’s biggest MMA promotion in a time of downward-trending PPVs without flagship stars Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey anywhere close to the octagon.

True, McGregor will return to the ring against Floyd Mayweather, on August 26, but that could be hurting the UFC’s actual numbers more than helping them. We’ll get to that shortly.

Regardless, both the preliminary card television ratings and pay-per-view buyrates for July 8’s UFC 213 from Las Vegas were recently revealed, and the numbers ultimately amounted to some of the most dismal overall viewership turnouts the UFC has ever seen. Now, women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes’ extremely late withdrawal from her championship bout versus Valentina Shevchenko most definitely caused the lack of buys, but the numbers are concerning nonetheless.

Things didn’t get better two weeks later when UFC on FOX 25 aired live from the Nassau Coliseum on July 22. Despite former middleweight champion Chris Weidman securing an emotional headlining win over Kelvin Gastelum in his hometown, the card had the lowest-ever ratings for a UFC on FOX event in overnight ratings, a number that rose to “only” the third-worst of all-time when the time slot spillover numbers for the main event were factored in.

That continued a disturbing decline for big FOX-aired cards in 2017, but those numbers are also simply indicative of the overall trend of the year, where pay-per-view rates have went down drastically in addition to TV-aired events and PPV prelim numbers.

There are several big underlying factors for this sharp and disturbing decline. On the eve of the biggest pay-per-view of the year, let’s take at the five most impactful.

Promoting Only McGregor & Rousey:

The UFC enjoyed their most lucrative two-year stretch in history from 2015-2016, a time when their biggest-ever crossover stars in Rousey and McGregor were winning big fights in dominant fashion. Rousey was being called the most dominant fighter in MMA, and McGregor won both the featherweight and lightweight titles while becoming the sport’s biggest star.

But that time period simply couldn’t be sustained, as Rousey infamously lost the belt to Holly Holm at UFC 193, following it up with another unsuccessful title fight in her 48-second loss to Nunes at 2016’s UFC 207, after which it appears Rousey may never fight in the UFC again.

McGregor is not gone; at least not in the same sense as Rousey. He’s obviously involved in his hyped-up boxing match with Floyd Mayweather, and while the UFC will obviously get a ton of attention and hype from that massive spectacle, it brings up one vital, overarching point – the UFC simply promoted only their top two stars in recent years, and while it clearly worked in that regard, it left them much too dependent on McGregor and Rousey for success, because their other fighters just aren’t bringing in any numbers at all.

If they ever want to get back to the level where they have their big draws and their mid-level stars; say in the time of dominant champions Anderson Silva and Georges St-Pierre where mid-level stars like Rashad Evans and Rampage Jackson could still sell an in-between card for 350-400,000 buys, they’re going to have to diversify their promotional strategy.

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Floyd Mayweather’s Team Recruiting Nate Diaz To Walk Out For McGregor Fight

If Floyd Mayweather’s team has their way, a face very close to Conor McGregor’s career will be walking out with their team when the legendary boxer faces McGregor on August 26 in Las Vegas. That’s according to Jason Lee, a member of Mayweather’s vast entourage, who told TMZ Sports that he’s made a call to […]

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If Floyd Mayweather’s team has their way, a face very close to Conor McGregor’s career will be walking out with their team when the legendary boxer faces McGregor on August 26 in Las Vegas.

That’s according to Jason Lee, a member of Mayweather’s vast entourage, who told TMZ Sports that he’s made a call to Nate Diaz, the UFC bad boy who handed ‘The Notorious’ his sole UFC defeat back in March of last year:

Lee revealed he’s from Stockton, and he’s motivated by what went down between his boy Mayweather and McGregor at the final world tour press conference stop in London two weeks ago, so he’s going to get ahold of the younger Diaz:

“I’m from Stockton, California, and I was just in London with Floyd when the shit went down with Conor. I’m gone make a call to Nate Diaz. I would love to see him walkout with Floyd.”

Mayweather and his team have repeatedly cited the fact that McGregor tapped out to a Diaz choke in their first meeting at UFC 196, pointing to that as evidence that the UFC lightweight champ is a quitter.

But “The Notorious” rebounded well to outlast Diaz in a closely-contested majority decision at August 2016’s UFC 202, avenging his only loss and moving on to dust Eddie Alvarez for the UFC 155-pound title that November. Diaz immediately began calling for a trilogy fight with McGregor after the controversial loss, so he could either want to support a fighter with a common enemy, or turn down the offer because he believes he should be the one fighting the Irish superstar.

Do you think Diaz should walk out with Mayweather in Las Vegas?

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