boxing

Tale of the tape

David

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Paul Malignaggi, a former boxing world champion, was the sparring partner of Conor McGregor until earlier this month. I am still not sure on the exact timeline here, but it seems that he quit after McGregor camp leaked some photos of him on his back. Which to say the least hurt Malignaggi’s feelings…

https://twitter.com/ConormcGregor5/status/893259037520912384/photo/1

https://twitter.com/PaulMalignaggi/status/893307628381712385/photo/1

Since quitting camp, Malignaggi has gone on the offensive with a serious Twitter war and hasn’t held anything back. I think he is averaging +400 tweets a day… He likes tweeting. He has also demanded that the full fight video be shared. Last night, Dana White posted this on Instagram last night. Malignaggi has continued to fire shots back at Dana, Conor, etc.

I have watched the clip at least a dozen times or so and here is the truth:

  1. This was a great marketing ploy! Rumor is that ticket sales are struggling for the upcoming fight. This will get major networks attention. ESPN is going to be talking about this for the entire weekend and it will bleed over into Monday’s talk shows.
  2. McGregor landed a great left shot. That’s it.
  3. Its like 18 second of film and of that ~30% is another angle of Malignaggi falling down. Like, c’mon. That was supposed to convince me that he is going to beat Mayweather? Gotta do better than that. This is such a small sample size that it literally looks like Malignaggi is in round 50 and McGregor is fresh.
  4. No one got knocked down. Stop it.
  5. McGregor isn’t a boxer. Watch the way he throw punches. They are not crisp. He looks like a brawler. He is hitting Malignaggi in the back of the head. Pushing his head down. Holding his head. It’s ugly. He’s not a boxer.
  6. A sparring partner isn’t out to hurt the guy who is going to be in one of the largest fighting events ever…

1 thought on “Tale of the tape”

  1. He did a really long interview with Ariel Heleani about this on the mma hour a week or so ago. It now appears he did get knocked down. To me it seems pretty disingenuous for McGregor’s camp and the UFC to fly in a retired, out of shape fighter and make him spar 12 rounds with a guy at the tail end of camp (peak condition) just so you can film it and put it on social media. I’m trying to think how many leaked sparring videos I’ve seen of other elite camps, whether for mma or boxing. Zero.

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