Conor McGregor regularly makes headlines for his over the top behavior, but he definitely crossed the line in Brooklyn when he and his entourage forced their way backstage during a UFC 223 media event and attacked a bus loaded with fighters headed back to their hotel. His gang threw chairs and metal barricades at the vehicle, smashing windows and injuring at least one fighter. Michael Chiesa suffered multiple cuts from broken glass and may be out of his fight on Saturday against former champ Anthony Pettis.
But the fallout goes much further than just that. Reports at this point are contradictory as to whether McGregor has a warrant out for his arrest or not, but he’s clearly going to be in some serious trouble with law enforcement over the incident. And then there’s UFC president Dana White, who called the incident the most disgusting moment in the history of the sport. There’s a very real possibility that this ends McGregor’s relationship with the UFC for good.
So why did this happen? What caused McGregor to go crazy and attack that bus? All signs point to it being over an incident earlier this week on Tuesday when UFC 223 headliner Khabib Nurmagomedov and his entourage cornered Conor’s friend and training partner Artem Lobov at the fighter hotel, slapping him multiple times. The confrontation was caught on camera and uploaded to the internet … take a look:
It was this, and not the UFC’s decision to strip McGregor of his lightweight title due to inactivity, that led to the huge rumble that may end Conor’s UFC career. Nurmagomedov and his team were on the bus that McGregor attacked, and during footage from inside the vehicle, you can hear them clamoring to get off the bus so they can fight back.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time Khabib has made headlines for confronting another fighter and getting into a brawl. Back in 2015, Team Khabib and the Diaz brothers went at it during a World Series of Fighting event in Las Vegas, with the fight rolling from the event to a casino floor to a hotel.
That’s something Nate Diaz brought up when sharing his reaction to the McGregor news, tweeting “I already slapped and punked both these guys and their teams though so that’s none of my business.” Team Diaz and Team McGregor also got into a famous altercation leading up to their first fight in 2016, with both parties getting fined $25,000 by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for throwing bottles and cans into a crowd during another press conference.
McGregor has also been on a bit of a tear lately with his bad behavior. Shortly after his massive boxing bout with Floyd Mayweather, he was caught on a hot mic using homophobic slurs. One month later he jumped into the Bellator cage during a fight involving another of his teammates and put his hands on a referee. And of course there were all those rumors of a run in with the Irish mafia. Since then the UFC superstar had been laying low, keeping his hijinx to social media. But with this latest debacle leading up to UFC 223, we have to wonder what the hell is going on in his head.
“I don’t know if he’s on drugs or what his deal is,” Dana White said shortly after the incident. “But to come and do this and act like this. You’re talking about a guy who has a baby. He just had a kid. This is how you’re acting?”
