On Monday, Paulie Malignaggi and Artem Lobov took the stage in New York to promote their upcoming BKFC 6 bare knuckle fight. Over the course of this press conference, it became clearer than ever that Paulie Malignaggi feels a great deal of animosity toward Lobov.
Yet from the sounds of it, this beef is bigger than that. Malignaggi has got a bone to pick with the entire MMA community; a community he feels has consistently misrepresented the sport of boxing.
Speaking to FightHype.com after the press conference had wrapped up, Malignaggi explained that he’s been put off by the widespread suggestion that MMA is more difficult or more dangerous than boxing.
He assures that is simply not the case.
“Lobov and the mixed martial arts community have really disrespected my sport in a lot of ways; boxing, saying that we fight with pads on and it’s not a real fighting sport and what not, but we have all the deaths,” Paulie Malignaggi said (transcript via MMA Fighting). “We have more of the deaths by a long shot. We have more of the permanent damage by a long shot. This is not to diminish the danger of mixed martial arts or any other combat sport, but there is a reason why boxing has more deaths and more traumatic brain injuries in one night, because we are the most dangerous combat sport.
“I don’t care how many 360 roundhouse kicks you can do, at the end of the day you can just [tap] and it’s over. In boxing, if you sit on your stool, you’ll never live it down the rest of your career. . . In MMA, Mr. Tap Machine Conor [McGregor] does it every fight. He’s done it what, three out of his last four fights? He’s not Notorious McGregor, he’s tapout McGregor but at the end of the day, he’s still the biggest star there. It’s more accepting to save your life. . . In MMA, they praise these guys. He’s over there selling whiskey and people are buying it. In boxing, if a guy quit as much as this guy quit and he tried to make any product, they’d kick him in his ass and say get the f*ck out of here with your bum product.”
Paulie Malignaggi continued, explaining that he plans to inflict serious damage on Artem Lobov as a way of showing the MMA community how dangerous his line of work is.
“When your piece of sh*t community and your piece of sh*t people talk about ‘we fight with pads on and now you’re in a dangerous sport like MMA,’ when nothing of the sort happens to you which is why you have a circus of a fanbase because it’s like wrestling. At the end of the day, no matter what happens to you guys, [tapping] assures you you’re gonna see that guy next week. [Tapping] assure you you’re gonna see that guy in a few months. In boxing, you don’t have those assurances so there’s a respect level even to the trash talk that we have and it’s being surpassed now, it’s being overcome with this garbage that we have from this other community. For me, I think the way you solve it, seeing one of their own in a coma, seeing one of their own in a f*cking coffin, then you say, ‘You know what, this sh*t is not a joke.’
“Fighters risk their lives, no matter what combat sport they’re in. You’re risking your life getting in there, bro. Your life can change in one night. But no other sport does it change like boxing.”
What do you think of these comments from Paulie Malignaggi?
This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 5/21/2019.