Paulie Malignaggi has likened Conor McGregor to a “real life WWE character” and even claimed that he wouldn’t be surprised if he had paid Miami Heat’s mascot to say that the UFC star had put him in hospital.
The Irish MMA fighter hit the news recently after an altercation with the NBA team’s mascot Burnie during a third-quarter promotion of one of McGregor’s own brand products. With Burnie seemingly up for some boxing on court, McGregor appeared to knock him out with one punch before hitting him again when he was on the floor.
The seven-foot-tall mascot was then dragged off the court, but it was later claimed that the individual inside the Burnie costume had to receive hospital treatment for his injuries.
However 42-year-old boxer Malignaggi does not rate McGregor and has claimed that the entire event was completely staged, potentially including the hospital trip.
Malignaggi told Lord Ping: “I don’t know if he really sent him to the hospital. McGregor is so in tune with his image I could easily see McGregor and his team paying the guy to say he went to hospital to make it look like he’s a badass.
“I’ve been around the team and everything is rehearsed. They do everything to a tee. Everything is staged, except when he gets the s*** beaten out of him. I’ve looked at the footage and I just can’t see that guy winding up in hospital, it’s clearly staged. I don’t know much padding was on the costume and he pulled the punches, it was all for show. McGregor is a wrestling character.”
Earlier this month, YouTuber Jake Paul proposed a two-fight deal with McGregor, with one contest in the boxing ring and the other in MMA.
And Malignaggi believes that should the double event come to pass, Paul will have every chance of defeating the ‘nervous and paranoid’ McGregor.
Malignaggi said: “Jake has a high school wrestler background so he would not be totally out of his element in the cage. He’d need to be alert to his kicks, but McGregor had absolutely no balls. If you make him just a little bit uncomfortable, you are going to put yourself in a position where you might win the fight.
“You can make him uncomfortable by beating on him – or if he’s beating on you – if you just hang in the fight he begins to get nervous and paranoid – he’s not a true fighter. He looks for the first window to jump out of. He’s got athletic ability but his anxiety levels get high. That’s why he gets so tired in fights.
“This guy posts pictures of him running up mountains, swimming 25 miles, bicycling through the desert – just to make himself look like he’s Rocky during training and then he gets in the cage and he’s tired after 30 seconds. He’s got no balls. There’s no way you can get that tired unless your anxiety levels are through the roof. He gets scared in there.
“Jake just needs the ability to hang in there and he can start to trouble him a little. He can put himself in the position to win the fight. I think McGregor’s boxing is brutally bad, but at this point, even in MMA, if you hang with him he will get uncomfortable.”