Having been stripped of his UFC lightweight title, Conor McGregor appeared to turn up unannounced at a UFC 223 media event in the Barclay's Centre this afternoon.
McGregor was seen throwing a railing at a bus, as he and his posse looked to enter the vehicle, presumably to confront lightweight rival Khabib Nurmagomedov. Michael Chiesa, who is set to fight Anthony Pettis this weekend, sustained a laceration to his face in the ensuing melee and is now in hospital. Rose Namajunas is said to have narrowly avoided injury in the attack.
Conor McGregor. Picks up guard rail. Attempts to throw it at bus. ABSOLUTE CHAOS IN NEW YORK. #UFC223 (Via Felice Herrig's IG story) pic.twitter.com/JYQZD7jtKP
— Chamatkar Sandhu (@SandhuMMA) April 5, 2018
In a video released by ESPN journalist Brett Okamoto's Twitter account, Dana White came down hard on McGregor:
...Do you want to be in business with Conor McGregor anymore? Do you wanna chase this guy around for interviews and buy his fights? I don't think anyone is gonna want to right now. I think everyone is gonna be pretty disgusted with Conor McGregor.
Listen you don't like Khabib, and you don't like what happened, then fight Khabib. You can come in here and do it legally. Listen, this fight is happening Saturday we could've talked and made the Khabib fight right after. You could do anything you wanted to Khabib within the limits of the rules of fighting. But you wanna grab 30 fucking friends and come down here and do what you did today? It's disgusting, and I don't think anybody is gonna be huge Conor McGregor fans after this.
To come and do this and act like this... y'know you're talking about a guy who has a baby? You have a son at home.
Ariel Helwani also confirmed that Artem Lobov has been removed from the UFC223. Lobov was seen in the many videos circulating from the incident & the Russian Hammer was also involved in an argument with Khabib Nurmagomedov yesterday which saw the fighter transfer to a different hotel.
The incident is said to have shaken many of the fighters on the bus that McGregor and his crew attacked and the remarks from White about litigation do not bode well for the Dubliner's future in the UFC.
