Tiernan Bradley spoke to The Irish News . If I left it at that you would be like “WHO”?
Bradley is a sparring partner for Conor McGregor in preparation for the Irishman’s bout with Floyd Mayweather on August 26th, and he was there when the Paul Malignaggi photo drama went down. He gave his inside scoop to The Irish News and it sheds some light on what truly happened.
On the Thursday, we were getting changed after training at the UFC performance institute and that’s when Paulie saw the photo for the first time. He was clearly pissed off, showing us his phone, saying ‘what the (expletive)?’ or whatever.
It was weird though because after that Conor came into the changing room but Paulie didn’t mention it, even though they did speak.
We were in the car home from training to get food and Paulie was like ‘drop me back to the house.’ You could see he was hanging his head, thinking about things. He was in a bad mood.
We left him to the house and when we came back he was gone – we were only away about 45 minutes. He must’ve been straight in, suitcase packed, out the door.
When you join a Conor McGregor camp, you know pictures are going to be released every day. Sometimes they might not be the most flattering.
Obviously he saw that picture and his pride was dented. I can understand that, but at the same time he was on TV doing interviews the week before, talking about Conor’s power being overblown and all this stuff.
He was talking to Mayweather’s guys, talking to pro boxers and doing interviews – what did he think was going to happen?
Anyway, that was last week, now we’re into a new phase three weeks out from the Mayweather fight.
The attitude of Conor, the coaches and rest of the team to Paulie walking out has been straightforward – (expletive) happens, life moves on.
This camp is not about Paulie. When we’re in the gym, we’re concentrating on Conor, getting him ready. I did some school sparring with him on the Thursday, the day Paulie left and it was as if nothing had happened.
This is not the Big Brother house. It’s a training camp, and that’s all anybody left here cares about.