By Jim Dower: In response to the edited video released of their sparring sessions, Paulie Malignaggi is challenging UFC star Conor McGregor to a “Winner takes all” boxing match after he gets through with his August 26 fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. Malignaggi, 36, says McGregor can fight him for the chance to take the whole pot of money in a winner takes all fight.
A fight between McGregor and Malignaggi likely wouldn’t draw much interest in the boxing or MMA world. No one would pay to see McGregor and Malignaggi fight each other. The only reason the casual boxing fans are hearing about Malignaggi now is because McGregor keeps mentioning his name. There won’t be any interest in a fight between them, because Malignaggi is NOT an accomplished fighter in boxing. He was known more for the guys that beat him than in the fights that he won during his boxing career.
Malignaggi was beaten by Miguel Cotto, Ricky Hatton, Danny Garcia, Shawn Porter, Amir Khan and Juan Diaz. Porter gave Malignaggi a bad beating in stopping him in 4 rounds in their fight in 2014. That was a hard fight to watch. Malignaggi was pounded by Porter. Despite being a two-time world champion, Malignaggi didn’t distinguish himself as one of the guys to watch in the sport. He was a finesse fighter, who beat a couple of limited guys to win world titles. Malignaggi beat 36-year-old Lovemore Ndou in 2007 to win the IBF light welterweight title. Five years later, Malignaggi pulled off a surprising upset in stopping WBA World welterweight champion Vyacheslav Senchenko by a 9th round knockout. Malignaggi didn’t beat the super talented fighters. He beat belt holders to win his titles.
It did look really bad the way that McGregor, a fighter with a 0-0 record in boxing, was pummeling Malignaggi during their sparring. I don’t think it matters that the video was edited. Just the way that McGregor was hitting Malignaggi consecutively with shots, it looked like he was beating him up badly.
Up until recently, Malignaggi had worked briefly as s sparring partner for McGregor to prepare him for the Mayweather fight. Malignaggi hurriedly left the camp, however, after 2 photos were leaked by someone that showed him getting the worst of it against McGregor.
Malignaggi said the photos didn’t reflect on what happened during the sparring. According to Malignaggi, he was pushed to the canvas. The video of the McGregor and Malignaggi sparring session showed otherwise. McGregor appeared to have knocked Malignaggi down from a series of punches rather than him being pushed. Malignaggi wasn’t on stable footing, but that was because he was taking shots and trying to escape the punishment.
“Yeah, winner takes all,” said Malignaggi on his social media site about a fight between him and McGregor. “You saw the edited footage. Winner takes all should suit him if he had that easy time with me, right? Can’t edit that. August 26, there’s no video editing. I’d fight him in a winner takes all match. Winner takes all if he’s that much better than me at this boxing [expletive] as the edited video shows,” said Malignaggi.
Malignaggi should forget about McGregor. He got embarrassed by the UFC star with the pictures and videos. Malignaggi doesn’t need any additional video footage released making him look even worse than he already is. What Malignaggi should do is maybe start blocking the Twitter trolls that keep hounding him about him being thrashed by McGregor during the sparring. Better yet, Malignaggi would do well to close his Twitter account entirely so that the users stop reminding him daily about his experiences as McGregor’s sparring partner. By talking incessantly about McGregor, Malignaggi comes across like someone who is haunted by what happened to him.
McGregor says Malignaggi was concussed from their second sparring session, and that he had stumbled out of the car after being dropped off at his house by the other sparring partners. He says they were concerned about him.
Even in a winner takes all fight, Malignaggi would do well with likely endorsement money for a McGregor fight. It would help Malignaggi’s career to fight McGregor. He could give the entire pot to McGregor and still wind up doing well. I don’t think there would be any interest on McGregor’s part to fight Malignaggi. Why would McGregor, 29, waste time fighting Malignaggi when he could potentially make millions fighting someone like Saul Canelo Alvarez or Manny Pacquiao. The promoters for those two fighters would very likely agree to a fight against McGregor if he were willing to fight those guys. The outcome of the Mayweather-McGregor fight probably wouldn’t be a hindrance to McGregor getting Pacquiao or Canelo to fight him. Malignaggi has nothing to offer unfortunately.
Malignaggi lost his last pro boxing fight to fringe contender Sam Eggington by an 8th round knockout on March 4 of this year. Eggington is a decent bottom level fringe contender, but far from being one of the talented contenders in the 147 lb. division. Malignaggi’s last BIG win of his career came 4 years ago against a past his prime Zab Judah on December 7, 2013. Malignaggi beat Judah by a 12 round unanimous decision. This was not the Judah from 2000, when he was clearly at top form before he’d been knocked out by Kostya Tszyu. Malignaggi went through a bad period from 2013 to 2015 in losing 3 out of 4 fights. He turned things around after his knockout loss to Danny Garcia in 2015 by winning 3 straight fights against weak opposition before ending his boxing career with a knockout loss to Eggington earlier this year.
”Well, I’d be fighting for free, right?” said Malignaggi about McGregor. ”We can do a winner takes all. His highlight looks so well packaged that if he’s that good, he should beat me easy. Winner takes the whole pot. Easiest $$$ I would ever make in my life. We can do a winner takes all. He had everyone fooled that his boxing was that good from edited vids,” said Malignaggi.
Malignaggi is not a PPV attraction. Conor would never consider a fight against him even for a second. Malignaggi was good for McGregor to use as a prop, and a sparring partner to gain attention from boxing and MMA fans. It gave McGregor the opportunity to tell the world that he’d beaten up a former 2 division world champion in Malignaggi. Other than that, there’s nothing that McGregor can gain from him continuing to have anything to do with Malignaggi. McGregor made Malignaggi famous by mentioning his name frequently. Now that Malignaggi has had his 15 minutes of fame, I suspect that he’ll be forgotten about by McGregor, who will go back to the UFC after he fights Mayweather on August 26.