Conor McGregor lost the run of himself at Bellator Dublin, on November 10, but no charges were made against him and he has not been spoken to by the police about his decision to crash the cage after Charlie Ward’s victory.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment of Conor McGregor’s apology, which arrived, four days after his impromptu cage arrival at the 3Arena was the lack of a proper explanation for his apparent slap on Bellator official Mike Johnson.
The UFC lightweight champion had built up a head of steam watching Ward, his close friend, go toe-to-toe with John Redmond and propelled himself into the cage to celebrate when it looked, for all money, that the fight was over.
In all likelihood, it would have been but referee Marc Goddard did not get a chance to properly assess Redmond’s state as McGregor sprung onto Ward in unconfined celebration. What followed was an ugly scene as McGregor and Goddard clashed, the cage flooded with officials, medics and security personnel and a dazed Redmond crawled for cover.
McGregor left the cage of his own accord then returned soon after and aimed a slap at Johnson when he was prevented from re-entering the fight arena.
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McGregor apologised, at least, and it has been reported that he will not now fight in the year-ending UFC 219 due to the incident.
Some believe that McGregor should be punished more than the denial of a multi-million payday fight with the UFC. On The BBC MMA Show, host O.J Borg, former UFC welterweight challenger Dan Hardy and Nick Peet [of Fight Disciples] debated McGregor’s Dublin transgression and looked ‘at how Connor McGregor seems to be turning in the new Kanye West’.
McGregor may be more upset at the spelling of his first name than the Kanye comparison.
Peet was far from impressed with McGregor and suggested that he should have been arrested for hopping into the cage when he was not even a sanctioned cornerman for Ward. He declared:
Peet: “This was a guy – a spectator out of the crowd – [and] it doesn’t matter who he is. Let’s take away for a second that it’s Conor McGregor involved. This guy is a spectator from the crowd who has leapt into the cage, who has attacked a referee and attacked a fighter, who could say, as well.
“Then he gets dragged out, then he climbs in again, then he slaps an official. Listen, this has got nothing to do with how Bellator should come in treat him… For me, he should have been arrested on the spot and he should have been taken to jail.”
Borg:Â “Good luck being a police officer, IN DUBLIN, arresting Conor McGregor on a Saturday night”
Peet:Â “Yeah. Maybe that’s why it didn’t happen, unfortunately. Is this what Conor is now? He’s bigger than the law?”
"Conor McGregor should have been arrested on the spot and taken to jail"
Straight talking in our latest MMA pod.https://t.co/r44jHiCWE4 pic.twitter.com/tDnba7FhTw
— BBC 5 Live Sport (@5liveSport) November 19, 2017
Hardy was very critical of McGregor after the incident in Dublin and believes his social media apology has only made matters worse. “It’s amazing how people are writing this off like it’s nothing,” he said, adding that Redmond’s health and safety ‘should have been the priority’.
Hardy likened McGregor’s current travails to those of Jon Jones, who was recently stripped of his UFC light heavyweight belt, in that he has achieved most of the goals he has set out for himself and that he has too many yes men surrounding him.
The full discussion can be heard here.
