Conor McGregor is looking sharp, but did he go too far?

Wow. First thing’s first. If you haven’t seen the sparring footage released by Conor McGregor and his camp of the drubbing of Paulie Malignaggi then I suggest you check that out ASAP. Once you’ve done that then we can talk about the politics involved in the move.

Conor McGregor fighting Floyd Mayweather is an event that no one may have thought would be possible just a year ago, yet here we are just weeks away from, arguably, the biggest fight in boxing history. In preparation for Mayweather, Conor McGregor did the only thing that made sense and assembled a group of experienced boxers to spar with. One of those individuals was two time world champion Paulie Malignaggi. The Brooklyn native who is no stranger to talking a bit of trash said his piece months ago when he suggested that Conor McGregor would be an easy fight and that he’d destroy him if they ever met in the ring.

Apparently McGregor caught wind of the inflammatory comments.

From there, the invite went out to Paulie to come down and spar McGregor. But this was no normal sparring session. The brash Irishman sent out the invite as a declaration of war, a challenge of sorts to make Paulie eat his words. The reports from the McGregor camp was that sparring between the two was heated and aggressive. Not your usual kind of sparring session.

Paulie eventually left the camp due to the release of photos during the training session that suggested the former world champion was knocked down by McGregor. Paulie stated that the images didn’t tell the whole story and that McGregor should release the entire sparring footage. While it would have cleared things up, releasing an entire sparring video would reveal a great deal of information about fight strategies. But Conor McGregor is a promoter as much as he is a fighter and did, what he believed to be, the next best thing. He released a portion of the sparring, specifically the knockdown footage in question.

From the looks of things, it didn’t help Paulie’s case one bit.

Now, while the footage showed Paulie getting a thrashing, it by no means confirms whether Conor McGregor had a tough time battling the former world champion, it does confirm that the UFC champion was wildly successful at some points during their session.

The big question on everyone’s mind now is, was it wrong to release that footage to the public?

In my honest opinion, I don’t think it was wrong and I’ll tell you why. Paulie Malignaggi was entering a war zone and expecting that the rules of engagement for the average boxing camp would be adhered to. But in all honesty he should have realized exactly what he was getting himself into. Paulie trashed Conor McGregor openly, in the public, denouncing his capabilities as a boxer. Conor isn’t the type of person to take words like Paulie’s lightly. He openly admitted before Paulie came to the camp that he was going to make him answer for his words. In Conor McGregor’s mind he was readying himself to beat Paulie in a boxing contest and prove his point. You add that to the fact that Paulie threw barbs at Conor first, that the Irishman is a promoter as well as a fighter, and that generating buzz will lead to more eyes on the contest versus Mayweather, it comes as no surprise that McGregor would release footage of him beating on the former two-time world champion.

Whether or not you believe Conor was unjust in releasing the sparring videos, the new question now is how well will he do against Mayweather? If the video is any indicator, he has a lot more than a punchers chance against the pound for pound greatest of all time. But let’s leave that for another article.

What do you think of Conor McGregor’s chances?

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Jonathan Salmon is a writer, martial arts instructor, and geek culture enthusiast. Check out his Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to keep up with his antics.