According to a source with a direct connection to Team McGregor, members of the team have spent the past several days piecing together a short 2 to 3-minute clip of his second sparring session with multi-division former world champion Paulie Malignaggi. Ever since Team McGregor first leaked unflattering photos of the session, Malignaggi has been adamant that he "beat McGregor's ass", going so far as to demand that the UFC release the full unedited footage of the 12-round encounter. It took several days before a member of Team McGregor, an amateur sparring partner by the name of Tiernan Bradley, finally countered Malignaggi's claim, suggesting that it was actually McGregor who got the upper hand during the session.
Thus far, there has been no footage of the sparring session, but it looks like Team McGregor is in the process of changing that. "It's like a bunch of 10-second clips of some of his best moments that they pieced together; kind of like they did with the South African kid," the source informed us. For those that aren't familiar with the story, the "South African kid" that the source is referring to is welterweight contender Chris Van Heerden, who was one of the first professional boxers to spar with McGregor. Footage of their sparring session first surfaced on the internet over a year ago and at first glance, McGregor appeared to have success against the ranked contender. That was until Van Heerden exposed the video with his own unedited footage of the full session. In Van Heerden's version, it was clear that it was McGregor who was getting touched up badly by the professional boxer. Van Heerden himself has been critical of McGregor's attempt to present the false impression that he got the upper hand in sparring, so it should come as no surprise that the UFC star is now doing the exact same thing with Malignaggi.
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