Former two division champion Paulie Malignaggi has continued to turn up the heat on UFC superstar Conor McGregor - after the two fighters had a fallout from working together in training camp.
Malignaggi was hired as a sparring partner to help McGregor prepare for Saturday's professional boxing debut against Floyd Mayweather at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Mayweather, although 40 years old and inactive for two years, is a tremendous favorite to easily defeat McGregor.
Malignaggi quit McGregor's camp two weeks ago - after members of the UFC superstar's team released photos and edited footage of their second sparring session - and that content created the impression that Malignaggi tool a beating in camp.
McGregor recently stated that he was annoyed over what he believes is a very hostile reaction to decision to fight Mayweather. He feels the boxing fans and those in the boxing industry are all coming out and attacking him.
"McGregor gets angry because boxing has not accepted him, but would an MMA fighter accept a boxer walking into their sport claiming that they are the best when he's never done it in his life. That's the situation with McGregor in boxing, he is being laughed at and it is only getting worse as each video of a public workout or him shadow boxing is released," Malignaggi told Sky Sports.
"It's been a wild ride the last couple of weeks and every time I think I'm no longer part of the storm, another photo or video comes out. Part of me thinks that he has done this on purpose, maybe he wants to figure out a new opponent after the Mayweather fight if he wants to stay in this sport.
"He maybe even planned to make me disgruntled before we even got in the ring, I had situations where I would show up to the gym just to be told I wasn't allowed to train and I was put in a house that didn't even have cable TV. Was it all done to create trash talk, he has been dragging this all along for some reason."