Boxing star Paulie Malignaggi has been giving endless interviews over the past few days about his recollection of his “intense” second sparring session with Conor McGregor in Las Vegas last week, but up until now we’ve only been getting one side of the story.
While Malignaggi has admitted that McGregor got the better of him in their first sparring session, he’s also implied that he bested the UFC lightweight champion for extended periods during their second encounter, but it seems that the man who was cornering him that day, six-time amateur Irish boxing champion Tiernan Bradley, has a different take on it.
“I did Paulie’s corner for the spar, their second after a feisty first encounter, and I can safely say it will be very interesting when the video comes out after the fight,” Bradley said in his weekly column for the Irish News after expressing surprise at some of Malignaggi’s thoughts on how the bout had gone.
“When you’re in sparring, sometimes you think you’re doing better than you are, but watching back afterwards can reveal the true nature of the spar. I’ve experienced that myself, you start to notice little things you did wrong, or maybe punches landed that you don’t remember.
Paulie came out smack talking from the start, he was saying ‘wipe that smirk off your face’ because Conor was smiling at him, that kind of thing.
Conor stayed very professional; Paulie was saying stuff and then getting hit. Conor chose his moments to talk back. There are tactics to mental warfare too, knowing when to talk, and then there’s stupidity.
It wasn’t a one-sided spar either way, but I thought one was the clear winner overall and that was Conor. He was very calm, very professional and, honestly, he really impressed me on the day.
That’s just my opinion, people can make up their own minds when they see the video. Paulie has done plenty of talking, but he could be talking himself into a hole when the footage comes out after the Mayweather fight.”
