Malignaggi: ‘I cringed’ for McGregor during Khabib fight

Paulie Malignaggi has a lot to say about Conor McGregor’s performance at UFC 229 against Khabib Nurmagomedov.

Paulie Malignaggi had always been vocal about his dislike for Conor McGregor, and it was expected for him to be critical of the Irishman after his loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229. But what struck him the most during the fight was how he felt McGregor failed to “go out like a man” like he expects all fighters to.

“We win or we lose. That’s fine. And we go out as fighters, we go out as men, we go out with dignity,” Malignaggi told iFL TV. “That’s what competition is. But go out like a man. Don’t look to make contracts in the middle of the fight like ‘It was just business. Don’t hurt me. It was just business.’ You p-ssy.”

“I had my face falling off against Cotto,” he continued. “I would rather you chop my head off than to give you the satisfaction of me crying to you like a b-tch in the middle of the fight, when we still got to fight. When we still got to come out the next round. You p-ssy motherf—r. It was unbelievable what a p-ssy move that was.”

For someone he has an outright disdain for, “Magic Man” says it was still quite unbearable for him to see it all unfold during the fight.

“I cringed,” Malignaggi said. “And I don’t even like the guy, and I cringed for him when I saw that audio on my phone on social media when somebody sent it to me. Like ‘Ugh, God, what a p-ssy. Holy sh-t, he’s more of a p-ssy than even I could have thought.”

“Because I didn’t think he would say it out loud to the opponent. Who begs their opponent to take it easy on them in the middle of a fight? I haven’t heard of something like that in my life, to be honest. That was a first for me.”

“The Notorious” did immediately clamor to have another go around with Khabib sooner than later, but according to Daniel Cormier, McGregor may have already shown his best efforts against Nurmagomedov, and is not expecting the result to be different in a rematch.