Conor McGregor will try to quit against Khabib Nurmagomedov, according to Paulie Malignaggi

Paulie Malignaggi's prediction for Conor McGregor vs Khabib Nurmagomedov isn't biased at all!

We should have waited for the invention of sarcasm font before typing that sentence. Just in case you thought we were being serious, this is how Paulie Malignaggi opened his prediction for UFC 229's main event to SiriusXM:

"Here's the thing about Conor. It's pretty clear, obviously, that he has no balls."

As you can imagine, his assessment of the match-up isn't exactly balanced. However, it pretty entertaining. Plus he's a highly-rated boxing analyst. While boxing's a completely different sport to MMA, Malignaggi breaks down fighters for a living. That's something. He's also sparred with McGregor. That would also be something had it not been for their very public falling out. https://twitter.com/SportsJOEdotie/status/1026931235241779205

All whack, no sack

The plus side of being a ball-less Joe is that McGregor won't have to worry about illegal groin strikes. The bad news about having no marbles in his bag, according to Malignaggi, is that he won't be able to quit like he did in the first Nate Diaz fight.

"Here's the problem with this fight, Khabib is not the guy who will put you out of your misery. Remember that Nate Diaz fight when he shot in and got submitted? Nate Diaz is a guy you don't want to wind up on the ground with because he's a black belt in jiu-jitsu and he'll submit you right away. If you're going to fight Nate Diaz, you have to keep the fight standing up. In that fight against Nate Diaz though, he's getting pummelled in round two and he's going to get pummelled probably for the rest of the fight." "So what does he do? He needs a way out of it because he doesn't want to get beat up for four-straight rounds. So what does he do - 'If I take this fight to the ground, Nate will submit me and then it won't look like I quit.' Because if you're fighting Nate Diaz, common sense tells you not to take that fight to the ground. Conor is the one who took that fight to the ground. He shot in to try to take that fight to the ground. Why did he do that? Because he's trying to quit."

https://twitter.com/SportsJOEdotie/status/1027162784931475456

"Now I'm not a mixed martial arts expert."

Although he admitted not being an MMA oracle, he summed up Nurmagomedov as 'not a finishing guy.' What he meant by that, as he later explained, was that he's not the type of grappler that goes for submissions. This is true. Nurmagomedov's not really a submission artist. He's in the hurt business. Ground and pound is really how he does damage. Paulie believes this trait is likely to result in a very rough night for McGregor.

"I admit that Conor has some skills standing up a little bit and maybe Khabib is going to have a hard time getting him to the ground, but if this fight winds up on the ground, it's only a beating for Conor. So how is a guy with no balls going to take a beating for five rounds when he looks to quit as soon as he gets uncomfortable? He's going to look for a way out of this fight too."

As if the point wasn't hammered home enough, he brought up McGregor's lack of testicles, twice more.

"He has all the character flaws of a man with no balls. When you're a fighter, you can tell right away who's got character and who doesn't. He has none. So, he tries to play it up in other ways so that he covers up the fact that he has no balls."

There you have it, folks. The UFC 229 prediction you'd all been waiting for. Hope it was worth it.