MMA president refusing to help Conor McGregor after assault charges filed
In life, as in the Octagon, Conor McGregor has a fight he’s going to have to face alone.
McGregor was arrested Thursday and charged with three counts of misdemeanor assault and one of felony criminal mischief in New York, ESPN reports.
JUST IN: #UFC star Conor McGregor walked out of police station in #NewYorkCity after backstage melee he allegedly instigated pic.twitter.com/h8MUGhJDKr
— WBZ | CBS News Boston (@wbz) April 6, 2018
His teammate, Cian Cowley, is also facing assault and criminal mischief charges.
The arrests were made when McGregor threw a hand dolly through the window of a bus carrying fighters to Barclays Center, home of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and the NHL’s New York Islanders when it’s not hosting MMA events.
The dolly injured fighters Michael Chiesa and Ray Borg, which has thrown a wrench into plans for UFC 223 on Saturday.
Chiesa suffered facial lacerations, while Borg suffered corneal abrasions, a consequence of getting hit in the face by flying glass from a broken window.
McGregor’s own teammate, Artem Lobov, is out of UFC 223 as well, though not due to being injured.
Lobov got into a scrap earlier this week with Khabib Nurmagomedov, jeopardizing the latter’s fight with Max Holloway on that same card.
Chiesa, for his part, was ready to fight, but in his words, “A decision was made by the New York State Athletic Commission to pull me from UFC 223. I’m devastated to say the least. [Anthony Pettis], I hope to run this match up ASAP, June 9 in your backyard. That’s all I have to say for now. Much love.”
The NYSAC, which has long regulated boxing in New York and has handled MMA since the New York State Assembly finally legalized the sport in 2016, is the final arbiter on fight licensing.
Meanwhile, if McGregor thought he was getting any legal help from UFC czar Dana White, he is sorely mistaken.
White called the McGregor attack “the most disgusting thing that has ever happened” in UFC history, strong words considering the UFC has been around since 1993.
On ESPN’s “Get Up!” morning show Friday, White was asked if he would help McGregor.
“Normally, yes, I would dive right in and do everything in my power to help one of my guys,” he said. “But not in this situation.
“He came into the Barclays Center, attacked our fighters and attacked my staff with a bunch of guys. No, you don’t get my help on this one.”
In addition to facing the charges leveled against him by New York state, McGregor is in greater legal jeopardy; under U.S. immigration law, a “non-resident alien” like McGregor, who is a citizen of Ireland, could find himself deported to his home country and denied entry into the United States, which would make it very difficult for him to continue to compete in UFC events.
White said that he and McGregor communicated via text message after the incident, and that McGregor was “apologetic about the people he wasn’t trying to hurt. But he felt the Khabib thing had to be done.”
White also dispelled rumors that this was a publicity stunt put on by UFC, the way fighters occasionally get into donnybrooks at media events or the way professional wrestling pushes feuds between their “competitors” to sell tickets and pay-per-view buys to the likes of WrestleMania.
“This is the last stunt on Earth that we’d ever pull,” White said about such rumors. “This is embarrassing for the sport and obviously for the UFC. This is the furthest thing from a stunt. This is bad.”
White also issued what could be seen as a chilling requiem for McGregor’s continued participation in UFC.
“Obviously, the big question everybody’s been asking me is, ‘Are you firing Conor McGregor?'” White told ESPN. “This is bigger than Conor McGregor getting fired. There are so many more moving pieces to this thing.”
And the thing about moving pieces is that they don’t take kindly to having a wrench thrown in them.
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