Referee Joe Cortez recently made it public that Conor McGregor and Paulie Malignaggi have had some rough sparring against each other. According to Cortez, he had to step in and stop the action because it got a bit out of hand between the two fighters.
Malignaggi has now commented on the issue while being a guest on The Dan Patrick Show. The former world champion admitted that things got rough between him and the Irishman.
“I’ll be honest, I got a little rough, it got a little tense. It got very dirty. He brings a game face into sparring. He’s not very likeable. I’m not very likeable,” said Malignaggi.
The two have some history with each other. When McGregor announced stepping into professional boxing, Malignaggi was one of his loudest critics in the media. Apparently, the two took their presumed beef to the ring.
“Also there’s has been words in media about what we said about each other before we came into camp. It all came to a head on in the sparring and I’m sure it’ll come head on again in sparring,” told Malignaggi.
The boxer admits that it’s business only with ‘The Notorious’.
“I’m not here to be friends with anybody. He’s [McGregor] not here to be friends with any of his sparring partners. That being said, I expect another good one today,” he explained.
Floyd Mayweather and McGregor will fight this month at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.