UFC President Dana White recently released short clips of what appears to be Conor McGregor knocking down Paulie Malignaggi during a sparring session.
Tom Taylor has been a referee for a long time and he has his own opinions on what went down during that sparring session.
“I can’t tell you how I would have scored it live,” Taylor said to MMA Fighting. “I may have called it a knockdown, because the last thing to land was a short right hand to the side of Paulie’s head. That could still constitute a knockdown. It’s a judgment call and I think it could go either way. I wouldn’t argue it either way if a referee said it was a knockdown or no knockdown.”
Malignaggi left the McGregor camp after a photo was released of him going down, the retired boxer has since spoken out against the UFC Lightweight Champion.
Even Taylor admits he thought Malignaggi was knocked down the first time that he saw the video.
“Live, it looked like a knockdown,” Taylor said. “The first time I looked at the video — that quick six, seven seconds — it looked like a knockdown. But when you slow it down, you can see how he has him held down behind his neck, behind his head. Paulie pulls up and [McGregor] lets go, [Malignaggi’s] momentum is taking him. And then there’s that short little right hand that lands. So it would definitely be a judgment call right then and there. But looking at this video, I would say no knockdown.”
Conor McGregor versus Floyd Mayweather takes place on Saturday, August 26 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
