Paulie Malignaggi: ‘There’s a Method to Conor McGregor’s Madness’

Paulie Malignaggi is giving credit where it’s due.

Malignaggi was recently called upon to join Conor McGregor’s camp in his preparation for Floyd Mayweather. “Notorious” and “Money” will go one-on-one inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on Aug. 26.

Speaking to ESPN’s Brett Okamoto, Malignaggi said McGregor has done his homework:

“To say a mixed martial artist is coming into boxing and wouldn’t be awkward is an understatement. 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.”

While everyone has been talking about the power in McGregor’s left hand, Malignaggi said there’s more that’s being worked on.

“You come into the situation already knowing Conor has a big left hand. So if you’re fighting Conor, you’re probably gonna prepare for that left hand. So obviously Conor is working on other things besides the left hand, so that there could be a surprise element to it, too.”