Conor McGregor is on a rampage.
Every since his boxing match against Floyd Mayweather, the man has been out of his mind. He may have pissed off the Irish Mafia in the process. I guess when you have a couple hundred million in the bank, you let loose a little (or a lot)).
On Thursday, McGregor and his entourage gained access to the backstage area of the Barclays Center while the fighters on UFC 223 were in vans and buses. McGregor (and his entourage) allegedly threw a metal dolly through a van window and either successfully, or at least attempted, to throw other objects like large metal bike racks.
Due to those actions, two fighters suffered injuries that will keep them off the UFC 223 card that will take place this week in Brooklyn. Michael Chiesa was due to fight Anthony Pettis, but due to various cuts on his face, was forced to pull. Ray Borg was set to face Brandon Moreno in a flyweight bout, but had to pull out after getting pieces of glass in his eye.
This entire situation started when Khabib Nurmagomedov and McGregor’s friend Artem Lobov got into a verbal confrontation. There weren’t any punches thrown, but the two had a heated argument in Russian. McGregor storming the Barclays Center was apparently in retaliation from this mall altercation. Nurmagomedov was set to face McGregor if he won this weekend.
Due to Lobov’s role in the melee, his preliminary fight versus Alex Caceres was cancelled.
McGregor is out of control, but the UFC has a lot of ‘carny’ people in the business. Due to all of this drama, a Conor vs Khabib fight would draw huge money…but does UFC want to do business with such a loose cannon? They stuck with Jon Jones after all his issues, but this feels much more serious as this was pre-planned.
The UFC could suspend him for a period time, but would lose out on a huge money fight. The new owners of the UFC need to make as much money as possible as they borrowed a huge amount of money to buy the company. It’s a real sticky situation. McGregor is bold enough to push the envelope and force UFC fire him. He could go on to have a lucrative boxing career, even though I doubt he would stand a chance of beating any top boxers.
UFC really holds all the chips in this situation. McGregor has made it known that he will only fight for huge money (most likely greater than eight figures). Are there any MMA companies out there with deep enough pockets to give that kind of money to Conor? Well, Bellator is owned by media company Viacom, who have deeper pockets than UFC’s new ownership William Morris Endeavour. Viacom would likely lose millions of dollars putting him on a card (as they would be unlikely to recoup Conor’s purse), but would it be a wise long-term investment? It would bring a lot of press and eyeballs on Bellator, a promotion that doesn’t get much attention in the UFC-heavy MMA coverage.
There really isn’t a right answer here. Every decision has a lot of risk involved. The UFC will not change Conor McGregor and he’s popular due to him being ‘Conor McGregor’. We will have to wait and see if Dana White will risk losing McGregor over this assault.
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About the Author…
Bobby Roberts (otherwise known as Sweetbob) is the creator of ‘America’s White Boy’ and contributor at Project Shanks. His writing has been featured on ESPN’s ‘SportsNation’, Sports Illustrated’s Hot Clicks, Guyspeed, and various other sites. You can follow him on Twitter at @Sweetbob.