UFC President Dana White has dropped some verbal punches on former two division world champion Paulie Malignaggi.

For the last few months, Malignaggi has been involved in a war of words with the UFC's biggest superstar Conor McGregor.

McGregor, a two division champion in the UFC, made his professional boxing debut in August, and he was stopped in ten rounds by five division world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Malignaggi, who retired from boxing earlier this year, was hired as a sparring partner by McGregor, to help the UFC fighter prepare for the scheduled battle with Mayweather.

Malignaggi quit after members of McGregor's team released images of their second sparring session on social media.

The images painted what Malignaggi claimed was a "dishonest" picture of the sparring session - as one image showed Malignaggi down on the mat from a claimed knockdown and other images showed him taking punishment.

Ever since that social media incident, Malignaggi has been pressing to fight McGregor in a boxing match to set the record straight - and he believes it's the biggest opportunity possible for the MMA star.

White was present at the sparring sessions and claims Malignaggi took a real bad beating - and says the punishment taken was the real reason the boxer left the camp early and not because of what happened on social media with leaked images.

“Do you think people really want to see Conor vs. Paulie Malignaggi? People want to see Conor fight in MMA. That’s what they want to see. The Mayweather fight was a one-off, f***ing crazy deal. This is where he belongs, this is the sport he’s in, this is the sport he excels in and this is where he’s a world champion. This is where he needs to be," White told the “Real Quick with Mike Swick” podcast,

“Why did Paulie Malignaggi get up and walk out of camp after two sparring sessions? Because it was the right f***ing thing to do. Because he was going to get hurt, because he was going to take damage that was going to affect him for the rest of his life that he didn’t need to f***ing take. It’s not like they were paying him big money or he had a f***ing fight coming up himself.

“Paulie Malignaggi got up and left camp, and he should have f***ing got up and left camp because Conor was going to f***ing hurt him badly. It’s no disrespect to the guy. It’s a fact. I was there. I watched the whole f***ing sparring session. That guy needed to go home and he needed to leave Las Vegas.”