In the aftermath of Khabib Nurmagomedov's fourth-round victory over Conor McGregor at UFC 229, all hell broke loose. Not only did Khabib launch himself into the crowd in an attempt to attack one of his opponent's teammates, but three of his team members also caused a ruckus after they stormed the octagon to assault McGregor.
Following the incident, McGregor has been fairly quiet, but Khabib has had plenty to say. The Russian fighter apologised for what he did, but claimed he did have some sound reasoning: that McGregor and other people in his team had insulted his family, country, and religion.
“First of all I want to say sorry to Nevada Athletic Commission and second to Vegas," Nurmagomedov said. "I know this is not my best side. I’m a human being;
“But I don’t understand how people can talk about how I jump on the cage. He talked about my religion, he talked about my country, he talked about my father.
“He came to Brooklyn and he broke a bus, he almost killed a couple of people. What about this sh*t? Why do people talk about me jumping over the cage? I don’t understand. This is a respectful sport, not a trash-talking sport.”
While McGregor hasn't given much detail to his thoughts on the matter, his coach, John Kavanagh, has talked about the night in question. Speaking on Joe Rogan's podcast last week, he shared that he had been next to McGregor's training partner (and target of the attack) Dillon Danis when Khabib rushed him. While he seemed pretty lenient on Khabib at the time, he has now revealed that he actually got involved in the other brawl, and was hit in the process.
Now back to managing Straight Blast Gym in Dublin, Kavanagh spoke to ESPN's Ariel Helwani about the "madness" that night;
"I looked back in the cage and I saw Conor being hit too. And I saw security in there but they didn't seem to be quite on top of that, so I pulled people apart and kind of separated them. And then it was pretty much over, so that's all that I saw.
"I got one [punch] but it was nothing, nothing... I've been hit a lot harder. Nothing too bad."
Kavanagh actually compared Nurmagomedov's initial jump over the fence towards him and Danis to a stunt pulled by McGregor in 2014, when he confronted José Aldo in Boston, after his defeat of Dennis Siver. While he doesn't condone Khabib's behaviour, it's the behaviour of the other men that he finds difficult to understand.
"What I do hold ill will towards is the guy who punched Conor in the back of the head," he said. "It was a really cheap move, and a dangerous move."
Either way, after this incident it seems as if both McGregor and Nurmagomedov will be facing a temporary suspension from the UFC.
