Dana White’s entrance into the world of boxing has been mostly greeted with glee.
On Wednesday, the UFC CEO announced he and boxing’s most powerful man, Turki Alalshikh, are launching a new league that will match ‘the best with the best’ and revolutionize the sport in the best way possible.
UFC superstar Alex Pereira is now hoping to fight Oleksandr Usyk in a crossover bout later this year.
Fans are also excited about what Dana White can bring to boxing – but one retired fighter has expressed major concerns about the new boxing league during a wild rant aimed at the MMA mogul.
Paulie Malignaggi rants about Dana White
On Wednesday, Paulie Malignaggi took to his YouTube channel to vent about White and Alalshikh joining forces.
The former two-weight world champion levied several harsh insults at White during a nine-minute rant.
“Why would you align with a guy like Dana White, who has such a bad reputation for being a pig with the way he pays fighters?,” Malignaggi said.
“Francis Ngannou was making $600,000 a fight. Francis Ngannou, who is basically the Deontay Wilder, Oleksandr Usyk, Tyson Fury of the UFC heavyweight division at the time. $600,000 for a main event, plus a couple of pay-per-view points.
“You’re going to bring in a pig like this who has this reputation? I’ve met a lot of MMA fighters. I’m actually friends with more MMA fighters than I am boxing fighters, ironically, because the MMA fans really don’t like me due to the past situation with Conor McGregor.
“With MMA fighters, I have never heard a single good thing said about Dana White. It’s either no comments at all, where he doesn’t come up in the conversation, and when he does come up in the conversation, they cannot stand the guy. They don’t like the guy. He’s a dishonest p—-.
“So, I’m just going by what the people in that world have told me… Why would you align with a guy who has a reputation for being dishonest financially and doing such bad to the fighters? I don’t understand, man. I’m really disappointed.”
Paulie Malignaggi’s debacle with Conor McGregor
Most MMA fans will remember Malignaggi from his long-running feud with McGregor.
It all started when ‘Notorious’ signed up for a $100 million boxing bout with Floyd Mayweather in 2017.
During his first boxing camp, McGregor had a 12-round spar with Malignaggi, which got ugly afterwards.
The Irishman shared videos and pictures that suggested he got the better of Malignaggi and even dropped him – but the proud New Yorker insisted that he dominated the spar and had been done dirty by the edited footage.
All these years later, the hatred still runs deep, especially for Malignaggi, who continues to take pop shots at McGregor every chance he gets.