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Paulie Malignaggi takes it a step further, spits on Artum Lobov during face off

Yesterday’s opening press conference got pretty unhinged.

Wil Esco is an assistant editor of Bad Left Hook and has been covering boxing for SB Nation since 2014.

Well, the news is a little dry this morning, so let’s revisit some more of yesterday’s foolery. By now you’ve probably seen the little dust-up between Paulie Malignaggi and Artum Lobov ahead of their June 22 bare knuckle fight, but things actually got much worse, with Malginaggi spitting on Lobov during their face off. You can catch the video of that above thanks to Fight Hub TV.

It was a pretty abhorrent thing to do, and certainly worthy of a pre-fight fight, but the folks on stage were able to prevent that from happening. Then, in the aftermath of presser, Malignaggi spoke to reporters about what went down with Lobov, justifying his actions.

“We’re promoting a fight, we don’t like each other, and that’s what you get out of it.” Malignaggi would say.

Lobov would respond by taking aim at Malignaggi’s character for spitting at him.

“I don’t think he really got me there but he tried to fucking spit. And once again, that shows what kind of person he is. What kind of behavior is that? Boxing was always called a gentleman’s sport, there was nothing gentlemanly about that behavior. He’s 40 years old, he’s representing the sport of boxing, and this is the way he’s behaving...don’t worry, he’ll pay for every single mistake.”

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