Conor McGregor and Paulie Malignaggi get in heated confrontation

On his arrival to the MGM Grand to kick off fight week, Conor McGregor didn’t even get inside the building before he was face to face with former sparring partner Paulie Malignaggi.

While he’s preparing to face Floyd Mayweather on Saturday night, McGregor has been involved in a brutal war of words with Malignaggi after the two fighters sparred on a pair of occasions leading up to this weekend’s event.

On Tuesday as McGregor answered some questions from the assembled media, Malignaggi approached the Irishman’s team when he finally locked eyes with the UFC lightweight champion.

According to Malignaggi, he actually went over to speak to McGregor’s manager Audie Attar, who was standing next to his client in the mass of people. Instead, McGregor saw Malignaggi coming near and he decided to turn his attention to the retired two-division boxing champion.

“I was trying to be man to man with [his manager] and obviously you saw what happened afterwards,” Malignaggi explained.

McGregor could be heard telling him repeatedly to “get over it” after the fighters sparred for 12 rounds a couple of weeks ago that led to the fallout with Malignaggi.

Malignaggi has claimed that McGregor’s team used him and set him up as a fall guy so the UFC champion could look good against a former world champion boxer. McGregor has contended that he just got the better of Malignaggi in their training session and his pride was hurt.

Of course things will get even more interesting on Saturday night considering Malignaggi is calling the fight between McGregor and Mayweather as part of the Showtime broadcast team on pay-per-view.