New sparring photos show Conor McGregor pounding on Paulie Malignaggi

Conor McGregor and Paulie Malignaggi had a bit of a contentious relationship leading up to Paulie's stint as Conor's sparring partner. It all came about from the Mayweather vs. McGregor World Tour, where Malignaggi was a commentator leading into the Showtime Sports broadcasts.

His comments on McGregor were pretty much the standard fare coming from boxing experts, ie Conor had no chance. But unlike most other pundits saying these things, Paulie had to step into the ring with Conor afterwards.

The results? Sparring sessions that got 'rough' and 'out of control.' Malignaggi updated his opinion on McGregor, giving him respect for the intensity of his training and calling his power 'above average.' But that doesn't seem to have made things good between the two, and they continue to go at it hard during sparrings ... a recent one which ended up getting documented by UFC photographers. Take a look:

The photos seem to show McGregor going to town on Malignaggi, but of course what else would anything coming out of Conor's camp? We've seen sparring video before with Chris van Heerden that made Conor look good, only for van Heerden to release unedited footage that showed him getting the better of Conor. So it's not exactly new that McGregor would feature images showing him beating on Paulie. The only difference here is he may be doing it on purpose as a f**k you to Paulie.