By Scott Gilfoid: If former two division world champion Paulie “Magic Man” Malignaggi (36-7, 7 KOs) gets his way, he’s going to be the one to teach UFC star Conor McGregor a lesson if he chooses to fight inside of a boxing ring rather than inside a cage.
The 28-year-old McGregor recently picked up a boxing license to fight in California, and he’s very interested in fighting retired superstar boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. if he comes out of retirement.
Malignaggi, 36, doesn’t like the idea of an MMA fighter like McGregor assuming that he can get an enter a boxing ring and have the same kind of success that he’s been having in the UFC with him winning two division titles at featherweight and lightweight.
To get an idea of how well McGregor will do in the sport of boxing, all you need to do is take a look at his sparring session with boxer Chris Van Heerden on Youtube. McGregor looked dreadful during the sparring session. To be sure, Van Heerden is a decent fighter, but McGregor made him look like a world champion with the way he was totally out-boxed by him.
Malignaggi said this via skysports.com about wanting to be the one that beats McGregor in his boxing debut:
“If you are really going to disrespect the sport of boxing like that then I would like to be the one to teach you that lesson,” said Malignaggi. “I would never disrespect your sport and tell everybody ‘you know what, I could beat the best fighter in the cage’. You shouldn’t come to our sport and tell everybody you could beat the best fighter in our sport in a ring.”
Malignaggi’s career appears to be nearing the end after 15 years in the sport, but he’s likely more than good enough to beat a guy like McGregor with ease. I doubt that McGregor will ever agree to fighting someone like Malignaggi for several reasons. A. There’s no money in a fight between McGregor and Malignaggi. B. If McGregor loses to an older fighter like Malignaggi, it would make him look REALLY bad. C. McGregor is still under contract with the UFC, and it’s highly unlikely they’re going to allow him to fight someone like Malignaggi or anyone in boxing. But if they were going to give McGregor the green light to fight someone outside of the UFC, I doubt that it would be Malignaggi. McGregor losing to the likes of Mayweather would be one thing, but losing to an older fighter with zero punching power like Malignaggi would look bad. When McGregor did resume his MMA career in the UFC after a loss to Malignaggi< I think he’d be looked at differently by the MMA fans. In other words, McGregor’s stock would likely plummet dramatically after a loss like that. But it would be the same thing that would happen to any fighter in the MMA sport. If they took on a top boxer or even a former top boxer, I think they would lose badly, because it’s a different sport that they’re accustomed to. "I know you apologized about absolutely nothing last fight but after I am done with you - I am going to knock the beard off you homie - you are going to be apologizing for everything you have been trying to do to get into boxing,” said Malignaggi. If McGregor is serious about wanting to fight inside a boxing ring, then he’s probably going to need to downsize his ambitions by looking at fighting someone else besides Mayweather, because that fight doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Mayweather is retired from the sport, and he’s shown zero interest in coming back. If Mayweather did come back just to fight McGregor, he would take a tremendous amount of criticism from the fans, because there are other guys that they want to see him fight INSIDE the sport like Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman, Manny Pacquiao, Saul Canelo Alvarez, Tim Bradley, Gennady Golovkin and Terence Crawford. Fighting an untrained novice like McGregor would make Mayweather look bad. The reality of the situation is that McGregor would likely have a hard time getting a boxing match sanctioned between him and a top fighter. I don’t think the California Commission would green light a fight between McGregor and Mayweather in their state. If a fight like that were to take place, they would likely need to hunt for a state that would allow the mismatch in the U.S. I’m sure at least one state would give permission for the McGregor vs. Mayweather fight to take place, but I think it would look bad if Mayweather just toyed with him for a few rounds before knocking him out. If McGregor got hurt by Mayweather or some other top fighter, it would be a black-eye for the sport for having allowed the mismatch to take place in the first place. Malignaggi has won his last three fights in beating these guys: Gabriel Bracero, Antonio Moscatiello, and Laszlo Fazekas. None of those fighters are major players in the sport, but at least Malignaggi stopped losing. Before beating these guys, Malignaggi had suffered losses to Danny Garcia, Shawn Porter and Adrien Broner.