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Boxing

01st May 2019

Paulie Malignaggi criticised for spitting on Conor McGregor mural

McGregor has been taking up plenty of space in Malignaggi's head

Darragh Murphy

Conor McGregor has been living rent-free in Paulie Malignaggi’s head for the best part of two years.

Malignaggi continues to use every opportunity possible to talk about McGregor after the pair’s falling-out following the sparring sessions for which McGregor enlisted the help of Malignaggi ahead of his boxing debut against Floyd Mayweather.

McGregor’s selective posting of photographs and footage of the sparring with ‘Magic Man’, which suggested that the Irishman enjoyed the better of the exchanges, didn’t sit well with Malignaggi and the feud between them has been primarily fuelled by the former two-weight world champion boxer.

We’ve seen Malignaggi confront McGregor in Las Vegas, we’ve seen Malignaggi accuse McGregor of having sexual feelings for him and we’ve seen Malignaggi slap McGregor’s long-time training partner, Artem Lobov.

Malignaggi is scheduled to fight Lobov under bare-knuckle boxing rules this summer but it’s clear that McGregor is still the main source of Malignaggi’s fixation.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw5P09XhOcN/?utm_source=ig_embed

Malignaggi, who retired from professional boxing just a couple of months before he agreed to spar McGregor, either wants to settle the score with ‘The Notorious’ once and for all or he is well aware of the guaranteed payday that accompanies a bout against the Irishman.

On Tuesday night, Malignaggi posted a video to his Instagram account which showed him spitting on a giant mural of McGregor.

In all likelihood, McGregor won’t bother to respond to Malignaggi’s show of disrespect because he thinks about Malignaggi a lot less than Malignaggi thinks about him.

Malignaggi’s followers, meanwhile, wasted no time in criticising the former boxer and one glance at the comments on the post let you know that the video didn’t go down well.