McGregor To Malignaggi: Shut Up & Join the Queue to Fight Me!

By Keith Idec

Conor McGregor didn’t dismiss a potential fight against Paulie Malignaggi on Wednesday.

The brash Irishman didn’t exactly embrace it, either.

When asked during a conference call about boxing Malignaggi after he faces Floyd Mayweather Jr. on August 26 in Las Vegas, McGregor’s message was as colorful as usual when it comes to the UFC superstar commenting on his recent rival.

“Look, tell the kid to join the queue,” McGregor said. “Tell him to shut his mouth and join the queue, will ya? For f*ck’s sake, man. … He got his ass whupped and he went [running]. And I don’t know what you want me to say about the guy. But hey, there’s a big list of people that wanna get in there and try and fight me. So tell him to join the queue and we’ll see what happens after the fight.”

Nearly two weeks after Malignaggi left McGregor’s training camp on terrible terms, their verbal battle continues over whether McGregor scored a legitimate knockdown in sparring, who got the better of their two spirited sparring sessions and how McGregor treated his sparring partners while preparing for his showdown with Mayweather.

Malignaggi, who’ll be part of the Showtime Pay-Per-View broadcast team for Mayweather-McGregor, has said while appearing on several talk shows this week that he would like to face McGregor in a boxing match next year.

Bovada.lv, one of the biggest online sports books in the world, posted odds on a possible Malignaggi-McGregor fight Wednesday and listed Malignaggi as a favorite (-225/+175). The 36-year-old Malignaggi, a former two-division champion from Brooklyn, announced his retirement immediately after England’s Sam Eggington (21-3, 18 KOs) knocked him out in the eighth round of their welterweight fight March 4 at 02 Arena in London.

The 40-year-old Mayweather, meanwhile, remains a 4½ -to-1 favorite over a 29-year-old opponent who’ll make his pro boxing debut when they square off a week from Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.