Conor McGregor branded "lucky" and "a quitter" ahead of UFC comeback

03 December 2023 , 10:00

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Conor McGregor branded "lucky" and "a quitter" ahead of UFC comeback

Paulie Malignaggi has aimed a fresh rant at Conor McGregor as he labelled the UFC legend as a "quitter".

Malignaggi has been butting heads with McGregor ever since helping him out for his crossover fight against ring legend Floyd Mayweather in 2017. A rivalry between the two formed when Malignaggi was furious that footage of their spar was leaked, as he challenged McGregor to release footage of their entire training session.

McGregor became the first ever UFC fighter to hold belts in two weight classes simultaneously a year before fighting Mayweather. The Irishman hasn't won a fight in almost four years and Malignaggi thinks that timing was on the side of his longtime rival at the peak of his success.

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"McGregor was lucky to achieve what he achieved in his career, physically and talent wise he's up there, but just because you can do a bunch of high kicks from a Jean Claude Van Dam movie, doesn't mean you're a fighter; you need guts, you need a willingness to succeed, you need a willingness to enter the trenches and if you don't have that, you're going to fade," he told Action Network.

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"We've talked about AJ [ Anthony Joshua ] losing that edge, but McGregor is on a different level. He will quit on you, he does quit. AJ does not take as many risks anymore but at least he's not quitting. McGregor is an outright quitter. He is a fighter that was not as good as advertised, there was great marketing behind him. The money he's made now isn't helping, so you've got a problem - all he's going to do is continue to be a punching bag."

Being labelled a quitter is nothing new for McGregor, as former opponents such as Mayweather and fellow UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov have mocked him for his previous submission defeats. Malignaggi has explained why he thinks McGregor avoided fighting him after their sparring incident.

"I'm a better trash talker than McGregor, that's one of the reasons he did not fight me, I would have trashed him in the press conferences and the fight," he said. "It would have ended all of the hysteria around him because I would have destroyed him in the trash talking and in the ring. I would have ruined the whole aura around him. He was smart not to pull the trigger on a fight with me," he said.

Harry Davies