One of the best things to come out of this whole Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather circus has come from a very unexpected source: McGregor’s now former sparring partner Paulie Malignaggi. Who would have ever thought that McGregor sparring with a two-weight world champion would end up being so ridiculous.
On Tuesday we reported that Malignaggi now wants to fight McGregor for real on St. Patrick’s Day. I guess he thinks, and he’s probably right, that in a real fight he would win and redeem himself for the infamous knockdown video that Dana White shared online.
After Malignaggi went off, saying that he was pushed (he wasn’t) and that McGregor’s camp only showed portions of the video that made Conor look good (duh), Dana White was asked in a video posted on Monday if he in any way edited the video to make Malignaggi look bad. His response was pure Dana White.
“What am I, Steven Spielberg? Come on! It’s footage of the actual sparring. Let me tell you, I was there for all 12 rounds, and Paulie’s said some crazy things, some bad things about me. I felt sorry for the guy. It was a one way beating. A lot of people said Conor couldn’t box. Paulie was obviously lying about everything that he said about the sparring match, so I released it.”
“Yeah, I got no problem releasing the full tape. The problem is Conor doesn’t want Mayweather to see everything that he’s doing and everything that he’s working on. Those were some small sections. It was very one-sided, it was an absolute beating. And guess what? I think it was the right thing for Paulie Malignaggi to definitely leave, for his health’s sake.”
Hahaha. Well, at least White’s story lines up with what McGregor had to say in response to Malignaggi’s diatribe…
“He was looking for an exit. The spars were not good for him. He took a lot of head trauma. The sparring partners were actually telling us that he was stumbling out of the car after a 12 rounder. We were worried about him, he was certainly badly concussed. He showed up he tried his best it didn’t go as well, he got his ass whooped and he wanted a way out. What a better way for a guy like him to exit under a load of question and mysterious.
Check out White’s full interview below…
H/T BSO, UPROXX
