Former two-weight world champion Paulie Malignaggi was left with a black eye after sparring with Conor McGregor and admitted that there is “a method” to the Irishman’s “madness” as he steps up his preparations for next month’s fight against Floyd Mayweather.
McGregor has enlisted the help of Malignaggi, who has previously held the IBF light welterweight and WBA welterweight titles, to aid his transition from MMA to boxing ahead of August’s ‘super-fight’ in Las Vegas.
Malignaggi agreed to spar with McGregor despite being a vocal critic of the Irishman when he announced that he would be putting his MMA career on hold to box Mayweather, and joined his training camp this week.
Although he refused to divulge specific details, the American made it clear that the UFC two-division champion has “a game plan”.
Sporting a clear black eye, Malignaggi said: "There was a lot of trash talking right away. A lot of fighting right away. At the end, you look back on it, it was kind of fun. I don't have many people who can match my trash talk, but Conor definitely can. It was making it a lot of fun."
"To say a mixed martial artist is coming into boxing and wouldn't be awkward is an understatement," he added."He's going to have his own style and set of things he does. He's got a game plan. It's not what people think.
"I'll put it like this: He knows what he wants to do and he has a method of how he wants to get there. The mechanism of how he gets there may look, to the naked eye, 'hmm, I don't know about this.' But there's a method to his madness. He's a thinker."
Malignaggi was one of McGregor’s fiercest critics when he first obtained a boxing licence, back in February. He warned McGregor to “stay in his lane” and also told him that “you will soon be apologizing for everything you have been trying to do to get into boxing.”
But the two men have since buried the hatchet and earlier this week the American told The MMA Hour podcast that he was hoping to pass on some technical expertise to the Irishman.
“I wouldn't say I'm going there to train him but I might be able to give him some technical titbits,” he said.