40-year-old former boxing champ Steve Forbes declined offer to spar Conor McGregor

Steve Forbes was also a sparring partner of Floyd Mayweather and other top boxers like Manny Pacquiao and Canelo Alvarez.

After the very public falling out with Conor McGregor, Paulie Malignaggi stated that Floyd Mayweather’s last opponent Andre Berto decided to cancel plans to spar and help out the UFC champion. Malignaggi says that the trend of McGregor disrespecting boxers for marketing and personal gain will hurt his chances of ever getting big names from the boxing world to help him.

While that is yet to seen, another figure in boxing has gone on record partly because of the same reason. According to former IBF champion Steve Forbes, he has declined an offer to work with McGregor as well.

“I got a call to spar with them too,” Forbes said. “I said no.”

According to Forbes, part of the decision was the very public fallout with Malignaggi, and the fact that he hasn’t been very active lately.

“We didn’t even get to (talking about money). It’s just the way how it was handled with Paulie. Plus, I haven’t been sparring or training really like that.”

He says he’s aware of what happened, and doesn’t want to be another “former champion” that is used to market McGregor.

“Yeah, I know. They’d make me look bad because I’m not in condition. No way!” he said. “People were like ‘oh you would be able to handle that,’ but I haven’t been sparring.”

While he hasn’t “officially” retired, Forbes says he’s focusing on other things such as promoting his own boxing events as of late. The former champ and The Contender Season 2 star is now 40-years-old and hasn’t fought since dropping his 4th straight bout back in 2013.

While there are more decorated champions out there, Forbes has also been a quality sparring partner to numerous top boxing champions such as Mayweather, Pacquiao and Canelo. He has also fought the likes of Oscar De La Hoya and Andre Berto, and could’ve surely brought in some valuable knowledge to the McGregor camp.