NEW YORK – Artem Lobov let Paulie Malignaggi get through roughly 30 seconds of shoutouts, and that was it. After that? Madness.
On Monday at Dave & Buster’s in Times Square, the two heated rivals were feet away from each other during a news conference to promote their Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 6 headliner set for June 22.
Lobov already had his time on the mic, but he still had more to say when it was Malignaggi’s turn at the podium. Malignaggio said some thank yous, then proceeded to start talking about the fight itself, but not withouth Lobov interrupting.
Things nearly got out of control quickly when Malignaggi tried to bop Lobov over the head with the microphone. The two fighters were restrained, though, and Malignaggi carried on with threat after threat, all while Lobov stood feet away constantly berating him.
“My hands are frickin’ like razor blades, no doubt,” Malignaggi said. “First of all, get a good look at this guy’s face right now, the way it looks right now. Because next month I’m gonna make it all look like a road map. Back in the day, before we had MapQuest and Waze and everything, we had road maps. You’d pull them out, they had a bunch of lines all over them. I’m gonna make this guy’s face look like a road map next month. Permanently, because these scars are not gonna go away.”
More threats and insults ensued.
“I wasn’t made for this, right? I wasn’t made for this bare knuckle stuff,” Malignaggi said. “One thing about my career, I’ve always been known as one of the toughest guys in boxing, besides winning two world titles. This guy here, who’s known as a punching bag with a loud mouth, was known as the guy who just trained with Conor McGregor. What is this guy’s accomplishments?”
After roughly five minutes of yelling over each other, Malignaggi issued the lewdest of warnings to Lobov.
“You’re a piece of (expletive), and I’m gonna treat you like the dirtbag that you are,” Malignaggi said. “Because after I beat the (expletive) out of you, I’m gonna spit on you. I might take out my (expletive) and piss on you. … I’m gonna take out my (expletive) and knock your teeth out and piss in that toothless mouth of yours.”
You can watch the entire NSFW exchange unfold in the video above.
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