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Tyrone sparring partner Tiernan Bradley’s insider view on McGregor-Malignaggi sparring controversy

Paulie Malignaggi may be left embarrassed should footage of his controversy second spar with Conor McGregor ever see the light of day according to one of the select few that was present for the session.

The retired two-weight champion acrimoniously departed from the McGregor camp last week after unflattering and allegedly misleading photos of Malignaggi on the canvas were released by the Irishman’s team.

Malignaggi would subsequently, and continues to, lash out at ‘The Notorious’ claiming that he got the better of McGregor in the ill-fated spar. However one of McGregor’s other sparring partners for the Floyd Mayweather mega-money match-up has come out to give his take on events.

Following an impressive showing during the Dublin portion of the camp, Tyrone welterweight Tiernan Bradley was retained by McGregor for the Las Vegas leg and is currently out in Sin City helping the Crumlin light middleweight prepare for his pro debut.

Recently Bradley has been providing a brilliant weekly column for The Irish News, and diary entry number three focuses on the Malignaggi controversy.

The Omagh 20 year old has a very different version of events and outlined how “I can safely say it will be very interesting when the video comes out after the fight.”

“It wasn’t a one-sided spar either way but I thought one was the clear winner overall and that was Conor. He was very calm, very professional and, honestly, he really impressed me on the day.”

“That’s just my opinion, people can make up their own minds when they see the video. Paulie has done plenty of talking, but he could be talking himself into a hole when the footage comes out after the Mayweather fight.”

While refusing to go into detail on the knockdown, which Malignaggi claimed to be a pushdown, Bradley hinted that it may not be as innocuous as ‘The Magic Man’ would have people believe.

“You can make your own mind up when the footage is eventually released,” he wrote. “If anybody even cares by that stage.”

“I’ve seen people say that, from the photo, you can tell that it was a push down by the body language of [referee] Joe Cortez. I can tell you now – Joe didn’t see the incident that led to Paulie being on the ground. He didn’t see it.”

Bradley, a Commonwealth Youth Games silver medalist and semi-finalist at this year’s Elite Seniors, will stay in Vegas for the remainder of camp leading up to the August 26th fight night at the T-Mobile Arena and will continue with his fascinating in-depth columns every Tuesday.

Read Tiernan Bradley’s third column for the Irish News in full here.

Read diary entry #1 here and diary entry #2 here.

gym trition

frayne carpentry

Joe O'Neill

Reporting on Irish boxing the past five years. Work has appeared on irish-boxing.com, Boxing News, the42.ie, and local and national media. Provide live ringside updates, occasional interviews, and special features on the future of Irish boxing. email: joneill6@tcd.ie

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