Dan Hardy has given his take on Paulie Malignaggi’s unfavorable comments on the mixed martial arts community.
Malignaggi is set to meet former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) featherweight Artem Lobov on June 22 at BKFC 6. Both men attended a press conference, which MMA News was on the scene for, in New York City earlier this week. During a media scrum following the presser, Malignaggi told reporters that the MMA community was a “piece of sh*t”
Hardy Speaks On Malignaggi’s Comments
Hardy, a former UFC welterweight title contender who now serves as a color commentator, appeared on SiriusXM and spoke to RJ Clifford. During the podcast appearance, Hardy touched on Malignaggi’s remarks (via BJPenn.com):
“It disappoints me that he is grouping all MMA fans together. We are not all grouped together, we are not poking fun at boxing because they wear pads, we do respect it and it’s often been boxing that has drawn the ‘us vs. you’ argument because of the rise of MMA.”
Hardy went on to criticize Malignaggi for saying that boxing is the tougher combat sport due to the number of deaths due to injury:
“To claim the deaths in boxing is ridiculous, to say we’re [boxing] the toughest sport because we have the most deaths is silly. Maybe what we should do is analyze why there are deaths in boxing and see if we can fix it, and part of the problem maybe is [that] they are wearing padded hands.
“Now Paulie is going to get a very different look when he’s bare-knuckle boxing cause he’s going to break both his hands on Artem Lobov’s head. He’s got soft hands and no punching power as it is…He’s also set the bar very high now because if he goes into this fight against Artem, he breaks both his hands and he can’t continue to fight what’s he going to do, tough guy it through?”
Malignaggi has had beef with MMA fans since his infamous 2017 sparring session. “The Magic Man” has since been at odds with many in the MMA circle, claiming that there is a disrespect for the sport of boxing.
