McGregor Trolls Malignaggi Again – ‘Worst World Champion Of All Time’

Conor McGregor fired some verbal shots at Paulie Malignaggi in a throwback to their feud in 2017. 

The Notorious happened to be preparing for the biggest fight of his career as he crossed over into boxing to face Floyd Mayweather Jr. And as part of that process, Malignaggi was brought in as a sparring partner.

After what seemed to be a positive start to the working relationship, Malignaggi was removed from McGregor’s camp. Both fighters subsequently gave a different account of what happened in sparring.

McGregor’s team then leaked a clip of the footage showing Malignaggi being on the back foot. In response, the Italian demanded that the full footage be released as he was adamant that he had gotten the better of the sparring sessions. 

While their feud did die down to some extent, McGregor has now fuelled things once more. 

McGregor On Malignaggi

 “[Malignaggi is the] worst world champion of all time,” McGregor said

Nevertheless, Malignaggi’s accomplishments should be put into perspective. Despite not having the most destructive knockout power, he did manage to win the IBF junior welterweight title and the WBA welterweight title, showing that he was able to move up and hold his own. 

Elsewhere, McGregor’s coach, John Kavanagh, has been delighted by his fighter’s current state after admitting that he was concerned about his mental health. 

McGregor has had to deal with the toughest period of his career after having been sidelined with injury since his loss to Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 in 2021.

The loss was McGregor’s third out of his last four fights. And after having been away for more than two years, there were question marks over whether McGregor would return.

The Notorious was vocal about how he had been deprived of his ‘livelihood’ due to some issues with his USADA enrolment. But now that McGregor has re-entered the testing pool, he is expected to be back in the summer to face Michael Chandler.

And Kavanagh was happy to see his fighter in a better state, given the struggle over the last couple of years. 

McGregor’s Coach

“Well yeah, I was [worried about his mental health] too, I’m not going to lie. But hearing him today and he’s out there finding this great group of training partners and at least he’s doing that. Hey, it’s not quite the same as getting to compete in front of a large crowd but at least he’s getting training in and that’s so important,” Kavanagh said

And yet, there is still the question of how McGregor will look on his return. Given that the injury was potentially a career-threatening one, fans will only know McGregor’s current state once he gets in the octagon.

And anything other than a solid performance will raise doubts over his ability to get back to the level that made him a two-weight world champion at one point.

We will have to see how this will all play out moving forward in the future. ‘Find all the latest boxing news and MMA breaking updates on boxingnews.com’