Al Iaquinta has released his footage of the Conor McGregor bus attack on UFC 223 media day.
The Monday after UFC 223, Al Iaquinta went on the MMA Hour and gave his account of UFC 223media day bus incident involving Conor McGregor. When ‘Ragin’ Al first heard the banging, he thought someone was getting run over. When the window smashed, he presumed it was some sort of terrorist attack or shooting.
Then, when he saw McGregor running around, he composed himself. After the confusion had subsided, he took out his phone and hit record.
“Everyone was freaking out. That was insane. No one knew what was going on. Everyone was’ What the heck is this?’ ‘What are we under attack from?’ And then we saw Conor running and we were like, ‘Oh… alright.’ So I whipped out my phone and I just started filming him.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BhkcRz7jTFs/?utm_source=ig_embed
Confusion
It’s hard to make out everything that was said in the cacophony, but it sounded like Nurmagomedov was trying to calm Michael Chiesa down. The Dagestani’s eyes widened as he looked in the direction where Chiesa was sitting.
“It’s ok, it’s ok.”
Chiesa had to be removed from the card entirely because of injuries he sustained in the incident. He suffered cuts to the face when the dolly hit the window and was unable to take part in his scheduled bout against former lightweight champion Anthony Pettis.
Dana White confirmed that all fighters who were removed from the card, except Artem Lobov, were paid their show money.
The footage does prove one thing, Iaquinta was telling the truth about his own reaction to realising it was McGregor outside the vehicle. The face he pulled was not one of a man who was scared or worried. He seemed to find humour in the bizarre situation.