Paulie Malignaggi recently paid a visit to Fox’s Sports XTRA and opened up about his experience sparring with Conor McGregor. The former world champion left Camp McGregor after photos were published from a session. The images showed Malignaggi floored on the canvas after a what McGregor’s team called knockdown but the American says it was a ‘push down’.
“He was frustrated getting beat up on that particular day. It was actually a shove down, a push down. I think the referee [Joe Cortez] wasn’t even allowed to talk about it,” said Malignaggi.
But that wasn’t Malignaggi’s biggest issue. It was McGregor himself.
“My problem with Conor is his arrogance. His arrogance is at a point where he can’t make progress. He can’t learn. He just wants a bunch of yes men around him. He doesn’t want to be told he’s doing something wrong. Whatever he’s doing, he just wants to be told how great he’s doing,” he revealed.
Malignaggi and McGregor had a war of words when the Irishman announced his move to professional boxing. Back then, Malignaggi challenged McGregor publically and apparently, ‘The Notorious’ had not let it go.
“He took it personally. He’s a little bit of a weird guy that way. Because you mature past that at a certain age. At 29 years old you’d figure he’d me more mature than that,” he told.
McGregor is about to make $100 million dollars from fighting Floyd Mayweather. Despite the big payday and a wealthy budget, Malignaggi said McGregor did not provide proper living conditions for the sparring partners.
“My problem wasn’t just the sparring, my problem is also the way he treats people. The way he treats the other sparring partners. He’s a bit on the cheap side. Especially how he treats his sparring partners, living quarters and whatnot. I asked for nothing. No special treatment. I wanted to be like the sparring partners. I wanted to go over there and stay with the sparring partners. I didn’t negotiate my price. Whatever the first price they gave me I accepted that, which I never got paid by the way because I left. I never tried to make things difficult for them but I assumed things would be under moderate living conditions. They really weren’t. Like I said – a little bit on the cheap side,” vented Malignaggi.
Malignaggi wasn’t done.
“I’ve never seen such a cheap guy in my life! I was blown away by the treatment this guy [McGregor] gave everybody. But he rented himself a Lamborghini!”
The ‘Money Fight’ between Mayweather and McGregor is just under three weeks away as the two are set to collide at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on August 26th.