Conor McGregor open to fighting Paulie Malignaggi in UFC

Fresh off of a boxing loss to Floyd Mayweather that came with a massive payday, Conor McGregor is scouting his return to mixed martial arts and UFC at the moment, and while mentioning obvious candidates such as the Tony Ferguson vs Kevin Lee winner, a third bout with Nate Diaz, Khabib Nurmagomedov, the Justin Gaethje vs Eddie Alvarez winner, and he even floated the obvious idea of trying to face Mayweather again, in either boxing or MMA, which overall would still be the biggest money idea.

But another name he threw into the mix was Paulie Malignaggi, the retired former two-division boxing titleholder he had a beef with during training, after Malignaggi signed up to be a sparring partner for McGregor and then left the camp in a huff.

Malignaggi, who turns 37 in November, officially announced his retirement from boxingearlier this year after a knockout loss to Sam Eggington in London, and had been on the rapid decline for the last couple of years.

There are few people who would give Malignaggi (36-8, 7 KO) any real chance in an MMA rules bout against McGregor, and whatever chance there was to make serious money off of a McGregor-Malignaggi bout has probably passed. In all reality, there are probably five or six fights that make perfectly good sense in MMA for McGregor to do that would get more real buzz than a Malignaggi fihgt. McGregor’s return to UFC will be a big enough story on its own, it doesn’t need sideshow appeal, too.