New Yorker Paulie Malignaggi has moved into the world of bare knuckle boxing and today he had his first press conference with opponent Artem.
A close friend and training partner of MMA star Conor McGregor — formerly of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
The whole story line in this thing appears to be predicated on Malignaggi’s now infamous fall out with Irishman McGregor back when he was hired as a sparring partner by him before McGregor boxed Floyd Mayweather in 2017.
The result was a stoppage win for Mayweather inside the distance in Las Vegas but the whole McGregor and Malignaggi beef has trailed on since then for over two years.
Quite incredibly when you think about how long it has been since then.
Now McGregor’s close friend and MMA fighter Artem has moved into bare knuckle boxing himself and is taking on Malignaggi in the first fight of the new combative venture for both men.
Today the two fighters met at a press conference which resulted in Showtime commentator Malignaggi slapping Artem which then brought about some punches and extreme verbal threats in scenes that only be described as uncontrolled chaos:
Indeed, scenes typical of professional boxing usually — but the above occurring within a bare knuckle boxing contest.
Malignaggi really gave it socks there to be fair to him. He’s certainly putting in the effort from a promotional standpoint.
The death wishes and ‘piece of s***’ comments really sold it there. He seems to genuinely have some malice for this chap on the face of it.
Although Paulie is not known to have one punch knockout power the fact remains he’s a far more accomplished boxer and hand to hand combat practitioner than his MMA fighting counterpart Artem.
Malignaggi will come into the fight as a strong favorite and if he were to win with Artem ally McGregor now retired from MMA as of last week — expect a bare-knuckle match between the two in the not too distance future.