Last week, Paulie Malignaggi showed up in Las Vegas to spar with Conor McGregor for a second time in preparation for his August 26th boxing match with Floyd Mayweather. A contentious 12-round session followed, and an image of Malignaggi on the floor was released by McGregor’s camp which angered the retired boxer.
Malignaggi immediately contended that he was pushed down and that the image didnt represent what McGregor’s camp was clearly playing at – that Conor dropped him. Malignaggi demanded that the full, unedited video of the 36-minute session be released so everyone could decide for themselves what happened.
We havent got that yet. But tonight, UFC president Dana White posted two videos of the session that don’t show Paulie in the best light. One shows McGregor clearly hurting Malignaggi, and the other is the “knockdown” – a combination of hard shots by Conor and a push.
After the videos were posted, Malignaggi took to Twitter almost immediately to defend himself:
Pushing my head down with right hand as he’s draggin me in that direction by it then throwin the left, the push down is with right hand. https://t.co/txdK1ZQsIi
— Paul Malignaggi (@PaulMalignaggi) August 12, 2017
What I been saying still holds true, he gets 11 and 12 of which he shows footage and the “knockdown” is right hand draggin me down. 36 min.
— Paul Malignaggi (@PaulMalignaggi) August 12, 2017
They have rights to the footage, I’ve gone over all 20 rounds, he hasn’t released anything I didn’t already discuss from the start. https://t.co/1wKribHArl
— Paul Malignaggi (@PaulMalignaggi) August 12, 2017
He also took the time to take direct aim at Dana:
@danawhite you bitchass you were actually there and saw all 12 rounds. Really you fuckin cue ball ass fraud? Kissin my ass after the 12rds.
— Paul Malignaggi (@PaulMalignaggi) August 12, 2017
Malignaggi also specifically responded to comments from MMA analysts like Kenny Florian and Brendan Schaub (I use the analyst term loosely for the latter), essentially repeating the same comments as above about it being a push.
Regardless, I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ve heard about this.
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