Paulie Malignaggi's public beef with Conor McGregor traversed the fields of public relations ahead of tonight's fight. Malignaggi has led a consistent verbal assault on McGregor ever since he left his sparring camp.
It had become so embittered and had dragged on so long that it became increasingly clear that Malignaggi may have been angling for a fight with McGregor himself, given the amount of money any such bout would command.
For all the bad blood between both men, Malignaggi gave McGregor a level of respect after tonight's fight. Speaking on Showtime, Malignaggi tipped his hat to McGregor's "tactical brilliance" at the beginning, with the Irishman widely believed to have won the opening two if not three rounds.
Malignaggi, however, had no truck with McGregor's complaints about the stoppage of the fight. Whereas McGregor afterward said that he believed that Mayweather should have been allowed put him on the canvas, and that he was not hurt, but fatigued, Malignaggi says that the Irishman's failure to throw a punch in the tenth round meant that a stoppage was inevitable.
Watch it below.
