Artem Lobov on Paulie Malignaggi: ‘No one respects this guy’

We’re now just a little over 24 hours out from Artem Lobov and Paulie Malignaggi’s anticipated bare knuckle grudge match, which will headline BKFC 6 in Tampa, Florida, this Saturday night. In this eleventh hour, both men have found chances to squeeze in final bits of pre-fight trash talk.

“No one respects this guy,” Lobov said at Thursday’s BKFC 6 press conference (via MMA Junkie). “How could you respect this guy? I guarantee you his own parents are watching him at home going, ‘Where did it all go wrong? How did we not bring this guy up the right way? What is wrong with our son?’ I guarantee it happens like this. And they’re asking the same question: ‘Son, what is wrong with you? Seriously, look at what you’re doing.’

“There is such a thing as building a fight. That’s no problem. We’re going in to fight each other. That takes a certain level of intensity that you have to have. You’re going in there to hurt the guy, and he’s trying to hurt you. But this guy has crossed over the line, and I think anybody that has any kind of respect in them, that understands what respect is, will not be on this guy’s side.”

Clearly, Artem Lobov has no love for Paulie Malignaggi — and the feeling is most definitely mutual.

“I respect nothing about this guy,” Malignaggi said of his BKFC foe.

We’ll see if this mutual disrespects survives after the pair beat each other senseless sans gloves on Saturday night in Tampa. As we’ve seen so many times before, slugfests often have a way of dissolving pre-fight beef.

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 6/21/2019.