Conor McGregor’s one and only boxing outing is one of the biggest fights of all time.
When McGregor took on Floyd Mayweather in a huge money fight, all combat sports fans were paying close attention. The then-UFC champion had taken the fighting world by storm as he tried to be the first man to defeat Mayweather.
The bout took place in August 2017, in an event that featured a knockout from Gervonta Davis. The huge outing would turn out to be Mayweather’s final fight, as he rounded out his 50-0 career.
For his boxing debut, McGregor seemingly put in plenty of work to spoil Mayweather’s record. This even included a prolific world champion sparring the UFC star.
Paulie Malignaggi helped Conor McGregor prepare for Floyd Mayweather bout
Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience in 2018, McGregor’s coach John Kavanagh discussed the preparations they had for the Mayweather bout.
One of the most notable aspects of McGregor’s training camp was sparring with former world champion Paulie Malignaggi.
The podcast host Joe Rogan asked Kavanagh about a clip that emerged from the sparring that showed McGregor having success. However, Rogan added that Malignaggi later said that he was dominant in the training session. “That’s not what I saw,” Kavanagh replied.
“It turned out to be a great contest. I say contest, because it wasn’t a spar. They were talking to each other the whole time.”
Rogan also asked Kavanagh if the sparring match was scored like a professional fight, would McGregor have won. Kavanagh responded by saying, “Of course I’m going to say yes.”
Kavanagh then admitted that Malignaggi landed his own shots of significance in the sparring match. However, he feels that his fighter ultimately got the better of the former world champion.
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Conor McGregor spoke on sparring Paulie Malignaggi in 2017
In a 2017 interview with The Mac Life, McGregor gave his opinion on how the spar with Malignaggi went.
“The spars were not good for him,” the MMA star said. “He took a lot of head trauma. Straight after it, we were worried… He was knocked down, he was flattened against the ropes.”
McGregor went on to say that Malignaggi was ‘certainly concussed’ after the spar in 2017. He also described Malignaggi as being ‘disrespectful’ prior to the training.
The Irish fighter ultimately said that he liked Malignaggi despite their altercation.