Morning Report: Paulie Malignaggi blasts ‘piñata of combat sports’ Conor McGregor

On Thursday, the UFC held the first press conference for UFC 229 featuring the first press appearance of both Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov. It was a classic McGregor press conference, with the former two-division champion taking shots – both at Nurmagomedov and ofhis new Irish whiskey – and calling for a first-round stoppage of the “glass-jawed” champion. It was also a a classic McGregor presser in that it brought out fans and detractors alike, chief among them, former training partner, Paulie Malignaggi.

Malignaggi and McGregor have a sordid history dating back to McGregor’s preparation for his boxing match with Floyd Mayweather, and the bad blood has festered ever since. Yesterday, a press conference in London for the upcoming boxing match between Anthony Joshua and Alexander Povetkin, FightHype asked Malignaggi about McGregor’s upcoming battle with Nurmagomedov, and the former WBA champion had harsh words for “Notorious.”

“That’s a good ass-kicking waiting to happen,” Malignaggi said. “He’s gonna get the s**t beat out of him. Like a nice ass-kicking too because unfortunately for him, Khabib is totally emotionless [and] doesn’t give a s**t about your antics. These Eastern Europeans, you can’t get in their heads. You ever notice these guys? They’re like robots, bro. They’re like killer machines. They have no emotion, bro. They have ice in their veins.”

At one point, Malignaggi had good things to say about McGregor and was flown in to serve as a sparring partner for him in preparation for the Mayweather bout. But after a dispute in camp where McGregor allegedly out-boxed Malginaggi, the pro boxer took offense and the relationship turned acrimonious. Malignaggi refuted the claims that he was beat up in sparring but then UFC President Dana White released a brief video showing McGregor knocking Malignaggi down on one occasion. It looked like McGregor and Malignaggi were setting themselves up for a boxing matchin the future but after Mayweather summarily dispatched McGregor, the beef had mostly died down until McGregor posted about Malignaggi on Twitter a few months ago. Now the beef is back in full force as Malignaggi continued to go in on “the piñata of combat sports.”

“He’s been a pretty good punching bag lately,” Malignaggi continued. “He got the s**t beat out of him by everybody in sparring in camp – me and Dashon Johnson used to have to go easy on him. I smacked him around and he did everything he could to get me out of the camp. Then he got smacked around by Floyd Mayweather. Then get got smacked around by the authorities when he got arrested because he didn’t want to fight Khabib. Now he’s gonna get smacked around by Khabib.

“Yo, you’re a f**king piñata, bro. Think about it. You ever play with a piñata? You just beat the s**t out of it adn you get a nice prize at the end of it. He’s like the piñata of combat sports. Everybody beats the s**t out of him and then gets a prize too! I love it. You’re a f**king piñata. Good luck. That’s a nice ass-whooping you’re gonna catch next month.”

Nurmagomedov does figure to be McGregor’s toughest test so far, though also his most lucrative, at least in MMA. UFC President Dana White recently suggested that the UFC 229 PPV is trending towards 2.5 million buys. So, even if McGregor loses, he will still get a fairly large prize himself. Plus, if he wins, McGregor may well find himself an even bigger star than before, and even Malignaggi admits that this could happen, even if he doesn’t think it is likely.

“If he actually does get in there, I think his only chance is to land a big shot – a money shot- and I think there is an opportunity for that,” Malignaggi concluded. “But he probably gets the living s**t beat out of him. I don’t know, we’ll see. Just watch for the quitting face, because he has this quitting face he does where he looks like a b**ch when he’s getting the s**t beat out of him. I saw it in the gym and I noticed it on fight day too. He starts to wobble and has this b**tch face. Like, ‘I wanna get out of here, somebody help me, but I have no way out of this thing.’”

You can see if Conor McGregor will have a quitting face, or if Paulie Malignaggi will be eating crow, when McGregor takes on Nurmagomedov in the main event of UFC 229, on Oct. 6th in Las Vegas, Nev.