It ended in a brutal brawl on the outside of the octagon, with Khabib Nurmagomedov’s camp sparking the trouble after their man was insulted in the build-up by Conor McGregor.
But now, McGregor has been suspended by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) governing body…
How can that be, with Nurmagomedov having apologised for his team causing the violence post-fight?
Well, it is a regular occurrence in UFC for a fighter to be given “time off” away from the action if they had lost badly.
And McGregor got a thorough beating over four rounds in Las Vegas on Saturday night, eventually losing by submission after three minutes and three seconds following Nurmagomedov’s rear naked choke hold manoeuvre.
“Conor McGregor: Suspended until 6/11/18, no contact until 28/10/18,” said a UFC statement on Tuesday in announcing that the Irishman won’t be able to get into an octagon anytime soon.
McGregor, though, wasn’t scheduled to fight in that time anyway. He has already received his $3 million paycheque from the UFC, while Nurmagomedov has had his $2 million withheld until an investigation is completed on the brawl.
But there have been rumours of new video footage emerging that McGregor had also thrown a punch at one of Nurmagomedov’s team, which could see him facing an investigation from the UFC as well.
McGregor tweeted after the bout, “Good knock. Looking forward to the rematch”, but he didn’t attend the post-fight press conference, and on Monday, he sent a warning to Nurmagomedov: “We lost the match but won the battle. The war goes on.”
We lost the match but won the battle.
The war goes on. pic.twitter.com/CRtPaGfOnn
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) October 8, 2018
Nurmagemodov received a hero’s welcome upon arrival back home in Dagestan earlier on Tuesday, with AFP reporting him as saying that he had to “shut up that dimwit”, referring to McGregor.
The champ @TeamKhabib speaks on the #UFC229 main event.