In just a few weeks, Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov will face off at UFC 229, and things are just starting to heat up. Their fight will headline the night, and knowing McGregor is involved, things would be getting hairy pretty quickly.
McGregor captured the lightweight title at UFC 205 two years ago, but never defended the title, as he took time off in 2017 after the birth of his son. Many fans of the sport were a little surprised to see that there wasn't a lot of talk about the upcoming fight, with both McGregor and Nurmagomedov being pretty tight-lipped about the affair.
At least, that was the case up until a few weeks ago, when McGregor shared a montage of the ruthless training he has undergone to prepare for the fight. He posted the clip to his Instagram, showing him doing drills, sparring, and conditioning. By this point, it has received nearly 1.3 million likes and over 30,000 comments.
In the days since then, things have only gotten more intense. While Nurmagomedov seems to have kept his cool for the most part, McGregor is being his usual self, and things got pretty explosive in yesterday's press conference - even bringing the Barclay's Center bus incident back into the conversation.
Earlier this year, the 29-year-old was arrested on charges of assault and criminal mischief, eventually being released on a $50,000 bail bond. A video of the incident had made its way onto the internet, showing McGregor throwing a dolly through the window of a bus carrying other UFC fighters away from the UFC 223 press conference.
This all went down, allegedly, because of a previous altercation between McGregor's stablemates Artem Lobov and Nurmagomedov.
Despite his fiery persona, McGregor made a statement showing his regret over what happened that day.
"I regret my actions that led to today," the statement read. "I understand the seriousness of this matter and I'm hopeful this will get worked out. Thank you, everyone."
During this week's press conference, McGregor referenced the incident, with various insults hurled Khabib's way. Calling him all sorts, including "little rat, little weasel," "fanboy b*tch" and "you mad backwards c*nt", he claimed that if Nurmagomedov had got off the bus, things would've got a lot more violent:
"I just thank the Lord Jesus Christ that that man doesn't have the balls to step off that bus ... this man would be dead right now."
"He would be in a box and I would be in a cell and we would not have this great fight ahead of us."
In addition to these incendiary remarks, McGregor also took the time to promote his Proper 12 whiskey - the official sponsor of the fight. He took shots of the stuff throughout the conference, offering them to UFC president Dana White and Nurmagomedov. When McGregor found out that his opponent doesn't drink alcohol... well you can guess how he responded.
Beyond McGregor's chaotic appearance at this conference, we'll have to wait and see if he can put his money where his mouth is.
.jpg_cAKxFv?tr=h-184)
.jpg_LAqQrJ?tr=h-184)
