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Paulie Malignaggi targets fight with Conor McGregor in 2018

By Kristen King

LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 12: Paulie Malignaggi (white) celebrates beating Antonio Moscatiello (red) for the Vacant EU Welterweight Championship during the Matchroom Boxing promotion 'Bad Intentions' at The O2 Arena on December 12, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 12: Paulie Malignaggi (white) celebrates beating Antonio Moscatiello (red) for the Vacant EU Welterweight Championship during the Matchroom Boxing promotion 'Bad Intentions' at The O2 Arena on December 12, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images) /
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After a tumultuous time with Conor McGregor, Paulie Malignaggi is looking for a possible fight with his former sparring partner.

In fight news that doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone, Paulie Malignaggi has stated that he would like to fight Conor McGregor in 2018.

Malignaggi served as a sparring partner for McGregor leading up to his boxing match against Floyd Mayweather on Aug. 26. By bringing in Malignaggi, people saw that McGregor was taking his training seriously enough to where he may have a chance in defeating Mayweather.

During the fight’s buildup, McGregor and his camp continuously updated social media with photos and videos of how training was going, but they ramped up the efforts once Malignaggi temporarily joined the team.

Upon seeing some less than flattering photos and videos of himself, Malignaggi left the training camp and has gone on social media on a number of different occasions to call out McGregor for painting a dishonest picture of how training actually went between the two.

After days of constant explanation on social media, Malignaggi went on Ariel Helwani’s “The MMA Hour” on Monday to give some insight on his time with the McGregor camp and the newly formed bad blood between him and McGregor.

“He constantly puts me in the press with these edited videos, edited pictures and whatnot. Now, it’s picked up a ton of momentum,” said Malignaggi. “So yeah. So now the bad blood is there. Now, we’ve gotta fight.”

With this mentality, Malignaggi has already gone as far as to pick out a time and place that would be ideal to face McGregor. Still, this all depends on whether the UFC champion looks competent enough to hang inside the boxing ring after his match with Mayweather.

“I don’t know. It’s not up to me. Right now, I’m focused on how he looks against Mayweather,” said Malignaggi. “If he looks like dog shit against Mayweather, I don’t think anybody is gonna want to see him box again.”

Win or lose, McGregor has said that he will continue to compete in both boxing and mixed martial arts in the years to come, so a fight with Malignaggi may not seem as implausible as some may think. With the hysteria that was created between these two men, a fight would be the perfect end in all the back and forth that has been going on since the hostile split.

Next: Conor McGregor: 5 career choices after fighting Floyd Mayweather

A fight with Malignaggi would more than likely be received well by fans because of its documented hype, but McGregor must focus on getting past Mayweather first. Besides, he has already dismissed Malignaggi’s allegations as “concussion talk” so there is no telling on whether he’d take this challenge seriously.

If for some reason a fight between these two get made, it would be yet another show-stopping spectacle in boxing. But for now, McGregor and Malignaggi have separate jobs to do on Aug. 26, with Malignaggi providing some interesting insight as a broadcaster during McGregor’s attempt to become the sole loss in Mayweather’s boxing career.

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