Was Paulie part of the hustle or did he get caught up in it? For me, that?s the only real question about all of this silliness?
First of all, my stance on Mayweather-McGregor hasn?t changed one bit. I?m fine with the fight happening and I?ll be an interested, amused observer on August 26 while the boxing ?purists? are under the blankets with their tablets, trying desperately to find a working link to a stream of the show.
However, this whole McGregor-Malignaggi sparring nonsense needs to be addressed. And by ?addressed,? I mean cyber-curb-stomped.
I don?t buy for one moment that anything around those supposed sparring sessions between Paulie Malignaggi and Conor McGregor was legit.
At this point, it seems that the whole arrangement was always a put-on. Paulie was never brought aboard to be anything other than a marketing tool to sell McGregor as a viable boxer to the non-boxing, casual-curious fans needed to make this fight a PPV success. Malignaggi was there to be a photo-op (or video-op) for Team McGregor.
Any reasonably savvy fight fan would be hard-pressed to deny the above. The former two-division world champ wasn?t brought in to actually make McGregor a better boxer?that much is clear.
The question, however, is whether Paulie was set-up to deliver those photo and video-ops or if the Brooklyn native was actually in on the ?work.?
After looking at those ?leaked? video clips of the sparring and knockdown, I?m pretty convinced now that Paulie was/is in on the shenanigans.
I?ve been around enough fixes to know when someone is stiff-legging it on purpose and Paulie is not a good, convincing patsy (much to his credit). Those few seconds of video footage ?leaked? to the press seem staged and about as ?real? as bigfoot-in-the-forest cam footage.
From McGregor?s clumsy straight left hand, thrown sloppily from a mile out, connecting flush on Paulie?s chin to the dubious knockdown?nothing looked real.
If all of Paulie?s face-saving pre-emptive excuses were true and he WAS practically rushed straight from the plane into sparring sessions that he dominated for all but a few brief moments, the video clips we saw were still unbelievable.
I suppose it?s possible that an utterly out of shape Malignaggi?s ring work has deteriorated to such an extent that he was getting roughed up by telegraphed, poorly-thrown head shots from McGregor?even for a few brief moments. Maybe the one-time defensive master suddenly developed the bad habit of hanging his chin out over his body like a treat-heavy pi?ata. Maybe neither fighter actually sweats during a rigorous sparring session and 100-year-old Joe Cortez?in full ref attire with bow tie?also doesn?t sweat.
Even when suspending all doubt and bending my brain to accept that what we saw on those few seconds of videos was real, everything around this story just seems like so much absolute bullshit.
Paulie warned us in advance about the edited video clips that were about to be ?leaked? and laid the groundwork for enough plausible deniability to allow him to still hold his head high within the boxing world after this fiasco. His demand for Conor?s people to ?Post the full, unedited video? of the twelve-round sparring session in question is a request that will never be granted by the UFC, which has exclusive rights to the video. This allows for a perpetual he said-he said situation where backers of both sides can believe whatever they wanted to believe about the sparring session in the first place.
McGregor?s predictably silly bluster, of course, doesn?t make the whole thing any easier to believe.
?He tried his best, but he got his ass whupped,? McGregor told the media. ?He was badly, badly concussed after those rounds. Badly rattled?Sparring partners who were [staying] in the house with him were worried about him. They were ringing us, worried about him stumbling out of the car, incoherent.?
Again?bullshit, right?
It certainly doesn?t help credibility that Paulie has recently called for a ?winner takes all? grudge match with McGregor after the Mayweather fight.
Did McGregor and Malignaggi even have a real sparring session? I?d say yes (although I?m even doubting THAT at this moment). But, regardless, there?s no way that what we saw in those few seconds of sparring footage was indicative of anything other than a burning desire from McGregor?s people to get some of the ?no way he?s gonna win? stink off their guy so they can sell some PPVs to non-boxing marks.
Was Paulie part of the hustle or did he get caught up in it? For me, that?s the only real question about all of this silliness. I?m thinking that it?s the latter.
The answer to that, though, may give you the answer to another question?Is McGregor so awful that he could only produce like eighteen seconds of somewhat favorable footage in twelve rounds of sparring against a faded, out of shape, and ill-prepared retired boxer?
