Conor Anthony McGregor vs. Paul Malignaggi

St. Patricks Day 2019, Barclays.

(not official yet, but the wind is blowing that way)

McGregor, standing 5'9" is fairly close to peak-of-prime at 30 years old and (for the purposes of this sport) is coming off a TKO loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in his pro boxing debut in August of 2017. Malignaggi - eight years older and with an inch less height and three less in reach - has also not fought since a TKO loss in 2017, five months earlier at the hands of Sam Eggington.

They famously sparred twelve hard rounds ahead of the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight, after which a bitter feud has developed with Malignaggi alleging that he got the overall best of the action with McGregor's team releasing short edited clips that would seem on the surface to refute that.

 

It'll come as close as BooBoo vs. Kautondokwa did to selling out the Garden.

edit: tho idk, McGregor does have insane crossover popularity among the combat sport casuals. But still. Nobody is going to believe this is a great fight or anything. Malignaggi wasn't a sell out Barclays type of guy in his prime, and he's retired and shot.

 

Yeah, that will stoke the flames of interest for sure...they're going to purportedly include some footage of the sparring that Malignaggi says will have been "doctored" to look as flattering as possible for McGregor.

Now, those in McGregor's camp will say that every bit of footage the public has seen displays Malignaggi getting his ass kicked, so why on earth would anyone believe the rest of the session went any differently - but Paulie counters "so then release the full unedited version"...which he rightfully asserts they've failed to do after having said they would for a year and a half now.