In the latest episode of Showtime’s ‘All Access’, Conor McGregor is interviewed the night of his second sparring session with Paulie Malignaggi.
Asked how he fared against Malignaggi, a former WBA and IBF world champion, McGregor claims it was a whitewash. “I won all 12 rounds. 12-0,” he confidently states.
Two weeks on and, no matter what Malignaggi is saying to the media or on Twitter, McGregor is sticking to that line. The Dubliner credits Malignaggi for gloving up and stepping inside the ring but he is certain he had the better of their two training bouts.
UFC president Dana White released footage of the second sparring session – one that contained Malignaggi hitting the canvas – on Friday night but the Brooklyn native is still chirping away on Twitter. He has been vocal on McGregor since he predicted, late last year, that he would ‘knock the beard off’ him.
For his part, McGregor offered up an intriguing theory on why his former sparring had quit the camp and why he went public on their sessions. McGregor told MMA Fighting:
“I don’t know what he expected coming in here after speaking what he was speaking and the things he was saying.
“Even still, I didn’t disrespect him. I only released one picture. I didn’t release no connecting to the face shots or footage of him getting slapped around – because he got slapped around. He got badly, badly slapped around.
“He was knocked around. The ropes held him up multiple times and he was badly concussed. The sparring partners that were in the house were worried about him that night, saying, ‘He’s incoherent. He’s stumbling’. It didn’t go good for him.”
Ghostie pic.twitter.com/ViSNzrWV0J
— Conor McGregor News (@ConormcGregor5) August 3, 2017
Malignaggi told The MMA Hour, earlier this week, that he had gone off on one after he had been summoned to the gym, the next day, only to be told there would be no sparring sessions. He also declared himself the winner of the second sparring bout and said his opponent ‘whimpers like a girl’ when punched to the body.
McGregor believes the recently retired boxer and Showtime pundit fell foul of something that happens to many fighters after a rough contest. Watching the footage back, McGregor said:
“I was actually doing him a favour [not sharing footage] because he was rattled earlier and stumbling into the ropes.
“In my mind it [his claims] were concussion talk. You know when you’re in there and your head rattles, you don’t actually understand what has happened. You think a certain situation happened and it didn’t.
“So, I don’t know. He got his ass whipped, the poor boy, and that’s it.”
We fully expect Malignaggi to respond to the 12-0 claims over the coming days and weeks.
It would be interesting to hear on his take on the concussion comments and whether he was properly assessed by medics after the second session.
