Dana White Addresses Alleged Conor McGregor Bar Brawl and Incident with Referee in Bellator
Rumors began swirling a few days ago that UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor was involved in a bar brawl near his home in Dublin, Ireland.
The story started with several posts on social media with people saying that McGregor got into a fight with several bar patrons with tabloids around Europe picking up the story while trying to separate fact from fiction.
According to UFC president Dana White, he doesn’t buy a single word of the rumored fight mostly because everything McGregor does these days is caught on camera and he has a hard time believing the 29-year old superstar could get involved in a bar brawl without a million photos and videos surfacing within minutes of the altercation happening.
“I don’t think it’s true,” White said on Tuesday in Las Vegas. “If that was true, it would be big. Conor can walk down the street and it’s big news now. If this was true, I just have to believe it would be off the charts.
“If it’s true, we’ll end up finding out.”
Police never filed any charges so it’s more than likely this was a bad rumor that somehow gained traction thanks to word of mouth online.
One incident that McGregor was definitely involved in just recently in Ireland actually took place in a rival promotion after the UFC lightweight champion jumped over the cage during a Bellator MMA event and ended up getting into an altercation with referee Marc Goddard.
The situation unfolded after McGregor jumped over the fence to celebrate with his teammate, who he believed had just knocked out his opponent. Goddard contended that the fight wasn’t actually stopped yet and McGregor interfered with the end result, which caused him to eject the UFC fighter from the cage.
McGregor ended up chasing Goddard down, putting his hands on the official and then later taking a swipe at another Bellator official, who tried to knock him off the cage after he attempted to climb back in a second time.
As it stands, McGregor can’t really face much punishment for the incident because he wasn’t a licensed corner man for the fight, which means he was essentially a spectator getting involved with a fight. McGregor wasn’t arrested or detained by police at the arena so it’s not likely that he’ll deal with any repercussions as a result of his actions.
White maintains that McGregor was dealing with a possible punishment from the ABC (Association of Boxing Commission) after president Mike Mizzulli claimed that the UFC pulled him from the upcoming Dec. 30 card as a result of his actions at the Bellator event.
White mentioned that the UFC was attempting to book him on the card, but then added that ultimately McGregor wasn’t going to be ready to fight before the end of the year so in reality he didn’t face any repercussions as a result of what happened in Ireland.
“The punishment, he was being dealt with by the head of the ABC (Association of Boxing Commissions) and we were going to fight him regardless of what Audie [Attar] says, we were working on a fight for him at the end of the year,” White said. “He’s just not ready.”
