After Conor McGregor lost his boxing debut to Floyd Mayweather via TKO in the 10th round, many wondered whether he’d return to MMA or stick around in boxing. If he wanted to box again, he already had a pretty good feud built up. Former IBF and WBA welterweight champ Paulie Malignaggi hates McGregor’s guts after McGregor lit him up in sparring over comments he’d made to the press.
Paulie quit McGregor’s camp after photos of their sessions made it online, and from there he spent the next month leading up to Mayweather vs. McGregor sucking up a lot of the oxygen repeating the tale of what a scumbag McGregor was. The two even got into a face to face altercation on fight week in Vegas.
Now Conor’s coach John Kavanagh is giving their side of the story on what happened and if the two will ever fight outside of closed doors. He spoke to MMA reporter Mike Sheridan at a special event in Dublin.
“He had to go back to New York to do some promotion for the Andre Ward fight, and straightaway he was disrespecting (McGregor’s) power,” Kavanagh said (as reported by MMAFighting.com). “He was saying this and that, and I was thinking what are you doing, you have to come back here and spar Conor in seven days!”
As for a fight, McGregor was interested … but only if it took place in mixed martial arts.
“Conor wanted that,” Kavanagh revealed. “He said to me ‘Let’s get him in the Octagon’ and I said that there was no way that he would fight in MMA. You’ve got to be able to prove yourself in the arena. When Conor wanted a boxing license they could look at the Diaz 2 fight where there was more or less 25 minutes of boxing. Why would Paulie go to MMA? He’d never go to MMA.”
“Now, Conor could tweet now and say ‘I’m fighting Paulie Malignaggi’, and I guess I would be wrong then.”
Malignaggi called McGregor out, proposing a fight in New York for St. Patrick’s Day. Kavanagh is interested in the date and location, but would much prefer McGregor finish his trilogy fight with Nate Diaz there. But with Nate undoubtedly looking to get paid massive money, a deal may not be reached. Maybe Malignaggi could be the backup plan?
