Ever since the four-city international media tour last month to hype the Aug. 26 pay-per-view match between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor wrapped up, boxing's former pound-for-pound king hasn't been forced to carry much of the load in terms of promoting the fight. 

The majority of headlines since then have come from the mouth of retired two-division champion Paulie Malignaggi, an analyst on Showtime's PPV broadcast team, who briefly became a sparring partner for McGregor (21-3 in MMA) in Las Vegas before exiting on bad terms. 

In the aftermath, Malignaggi, 36, has made it his mission to publicly disparage McGregor at every turn. Once UFC president Dana White leaked a pair of videos late Friday showing McGregor, 29, roughing up and dropping Malignaggi, "The Magic Man" only amped up his anger.  

Now Malignaggi (36-8, 7 KOs), who retired in March following a knockout loss to unheralded Sam Eggington in England, is looking to take his beef with McGregor to a whole new level -- namely a boxing ring for a future PPV fight. 

Should McGregor lose to the 40-year-old Mayweather (49-0, 26 KOs), yet retain respect for his performance in defeat, Malignaggi presented the idea Monday during an appearance on the MMA Hour of facing the brash Irishman in a 2018 boxing match on St. Patrick's Day. 

"I understand this business very well," Malignaggi said. "I've done well in this business, not just in the sport. I've done well in the business. My eyes went to the calendar when I saw how much this is buzzing."

Malignaggi sparred 20 rounds in total over two sessions against McGregor yet claimed, despite the sessions being more like actual fights than sparring, that he controlled 90 percent of the action. The New York native contends UFC released tightly edited footage from the final two rounds when he began to fade. 

"It's not up to me. Right now, I'm focused on how he looks against Mayweather," Malignaggi said. "If he looks like dog s--- against Mayweather, I don't think anybody is gonna want to see him box again. So first and foremost, we have to see what happens the 26th."

During his media day, McGregor dismissed Malignaggi's comments as being "concussion talk" and said that the former boxer was staggering around and busted up ("The man was badly, badly concussed") after their second sparring session. 

Malignaggi, meanwhile, believes that those around McGregor have tried hard to make him believe that he's a huge puncher that has a chance to defeat Mayweather. 

"He's been given this false sense of security like he's some kind of crazy puncher that people really believes everything he hits breaks down," Malignaggi said. "You better learn to punch if you're gonna be a puncher. This isn't mixed martial arts anymore."

During an interview Friday with MMAFighting.com, McGregor responded to questions about whether Malignaggi was simply angling for a fight all along. 

"He's a guy that's at the end of his career," McGregor said. "I get the feeling he feels that the boxing game has betrayed him."

Not only has White publicly disputed Malignaggi's claim about the sparring sessions, saying McGregor dominated throughout, McGregor's training partner and UFC fighter Artem Lobov agreed. 

"Conor dominated him in every single round. It was 12-0, and it was easy to score," Lobov told MMAFighting.com. "Paulie doesn't want to admit that now, because it's not cool yet. Conor is seen as the amateur in the boxing world. I think when Conor beats Mayweather, suddenly Paulie will come out and he will admit that he was spanked because it will be seen as normal."

In response to Malignaggi's calling him "a punching bag" for McGregor in sparring, Lobov issued a challenge. 

"If [Malignaggi] wants to fight, I'm down to fight," Lobov said. "I'll box the ears off him, no problem.

"I think he's an emotional mess and he doesn't know how to control it. He saw me calling him a diva … and he just couldn't take it."