There’s still no confirmation as to whether or not Conor McGregor really did get himself into a bar fight with members of the Kinahan drug cartel in Ireland on Sunday night, but that hasn’t stopped a ton of European tabloids from running the story (without his name, to avoid potential libel lawsuits if it’s all bogus). Now Irish crime journalist Paul Williams is weighing in on the controversy, and he says McGregor could be in some legit danger.
“Conor McGregor is potentially in very, very serious danger, I hear that from my sources and from looking at the lay of the land,” he said on his radioshow Newstalk Breakfast (via Balls.ie). “He has ended up crossing swords, accidentally or however, with some very, very heavy people, or some people who are related to some very, very heavy people who could pose a very serious threat to his safety, and potentially his life. And I don’t say that lightly.”
“And these people, they don’t care, they don’t have parameters, they don’t have boundaries, they don’t discriminate between whether you’re an international sporting icon or just a man on the street. They shoot you. They injure you. They do whatever they want to do.”
“I would say, in the next 48 hours, if he still in the country – and I understand that he may have left the country – but if he is still in the country, I understand from my sources that the Garda will be approaching him to give him a GIM form, which is a Garda Information Message, to tell him that there may be threats to his safety. This is a huge story, and imagine what it would do to our reputation if this national sporting icon is attacked by a bunch of gangsters.”
Conor McGregor has kept relatively quiet since the event reportedly took place, but yesterday he popped up on Instagram with his face covered like a fugitive and the caption “The celebrity.”
That’s probably in response to all the tabloids referring to him as an Irish celebrity sports star. It’s still not clear though if he’s making fun of the rumors or if the post was a tacit admission that the story was true.
One person that doubts the rumors is UFC president Dana White, who admitted he hadn’t spoken to McGregor about the situation but still thought the tale was bogus.
“I don’t think it’s true,” White said during a UFC 218 media event. “Because if it was true, it would be big. Conor walks down the street and it’s big news now. If this were true, I just have to believe it would be off-the-charts crazy. If it’s true, we’ll end up finding out. I can’t chase all these things around. If it’s true, we’ll get it figured out and we’ll go from there.”
Let’s hope for Conor and the UFC’s sake that this is nothing more than a bit of media hysterics. But given that Paul Williams has reached out to his contacts in the Irish crime world and has come away convinced it’s a legit story, McGregor’s antics may have really gone too far this time.
