We've got some bad news for those of you who believe Conor McGregor will get KO'd in the first 10 seconds of his fight versus Floyd Mayweather...the man can box.
Just over a week ago McGregor's sparring partner, Paulie Malignaggi vocalized his displeasure with the leaking of an image that showed the former IBF amnd WBA World Champion on the ground following what appeared to be a knockdown at the hands of the Notorious. Malignaggi came out and vehemently denied that McGregor had scored a knockdown, stating that it was a pushdown and even going as far as to say in an interview with MMA Hour's Ariel Helwani that McGregor had pushed him because he was getting beaten.
Malignaggi stated that he was pushed down in the eighth, ninth or tenth round — the moment that was caught in the infamous leaked photograph — and that the incident occurred during one of McGregor’s “worst moments”.
“The funny thing about the push down was this — it was during one of his worst moments,” Malignaggi said.
“He pushed me down on the floor to try and catch a break and the instant I went down I got back up. I remember when I was down I continued to trash talk.” - MMA Hour
If anyone has got McGregor's back it's UFC President Dana White, and oh my did he come up clutch this time. Having heard Malignaggi's comments, White went ahead and posted video footage from the sparring session that clearly shows that McGregor did in fact score a knockdown, not a pushdown.
Of course, Malignaggi responded to the footage, pointing out the fact that the clip represented just a few seconds of their full twelve round sparring session. Still, the clip does prove he was indeed knocked down by McGregor. It just doesn't show how McGregor handled the rest of the fight.
By the way, those were just two of about 76 tweets Malignaggi sent out last night in defence of the knockdown. It would be nice to see the whole sparring session to really get a grasp of how McGregor's training is coming along, but it is nice to know that the MMA fighter's Squidward style warm-up isn't the best he has to offer in a boxing ring.
