‘It was like a Christmas present’: Conor McGregor details UFC 229 brawl with Team Nurmagomedov

Irish former double UFC champion Conor McGregor has spoken at length for the first time about the post-fight brawl which occurred immediately after his defeat to Russia’s Khabib Nurmagomedov in October of last year.

The fight, which was the most-watched single bout in the history of the UFC, was the culmination of months of bad blood between the two lightweight standouts but despite coming up short against the Russian, McGregor told motivational speaker Tony Robbins in a recent podcast that he was satisfied with how the fight’s aftermath played out.

Immediately after the fight, which Nurmagomedov won by fourth-round neck crank submission, the Russian fighter threw his mouthpiece at McGregor’s coaching team, before leaping from the cage to attack McGregor’s Jiu-Jitsu coach Dillon Danis. 

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From that point, all hell broke loose. Several of Nurmagomedov’s team entered the cage with Abubakar Nurmagomedov, Khabib’s cousin, among those who sought a physical confrontation with the Irishman. 

“So what happened was, the fight was done, the match was done. (Khabib) climbed over the fence and jumped into the crowd to make a bit of noise, but as soon as he jumped into the crowd, he cowered away,” McGregor explained.

“I like to call it ‘scurried away,’ because they’re little rats, they are. I’ll be honest. He scurried away.

“I gave my respect and congrats. He won the match. Let’s see what happens next time. I’m confident we’ll get it again – let’s go again. I am humble in victory or defeat, no matter what. It’s a sport at the end of the day. A gruesome sport, but it’s a sport. So I respect it. I was defeated on the night.”

The next confrontation, though, went his way, McGregor claims. Abubakar Nurmagomedov, UFC fighter Zubaira Tukhugov and wrestling coach Esed Emiragaev each entered the cage and McGregor soon found himself in a confrontation with his second Nurmagomedov of the night.

“(Khabib) jumped in to cause this chaos and went to attack,” McGregor continued.

“He was trying to just hide away when he jumped in, so he didn’t really do anything. But I saw this take place, I got up off the ground and said ‘OK, now I’m back in the mix’ (and) jumped on top of the cage. As I jumped on top of the cage, (Abubakar) came sprinting across and jumped up on top of the cage also to climb in and help him and join the fight.

“I seen him there. It was like a Christmas present. He was right there. I smacked him right in the eye socket, and we started fighting on top of the cage. It got broken up.”

However the incident was continued. Outside the cage, a furious Khabib was led away by security, while inside Las Vegas security struggled to get the situation under control. McGregor continued to detail the incident, saying that he put his back towards the cage in order to evaluate what was going on in front of him. But then he was attacked from behind.

“They came right over my back, right over my back. But one of them, the first one, the Chechen man, ran in front of me and went over to (Abubakar) that got smacked and was like, ‘What happened?’ I don’t know what he was saying, but then he turned back and saw me. But I had already saw him, so as he turned back, boom – I smacked him. He wobbled. And as I smacked him and rocked him, another one jumped in from over the back, and he sly-hooked me from the side. And then I covered up.

“That got separated, and then the final one was the original brother who was on the top of the cage – he broke free from the security, ran at 100 miles an hour towards me. He threw a right hand. As he threw that right hand, I threw a left hand. Boom! There’s an image, an aerial image, of the right hand just whipping by my face, and my left hand just landing flush down the pipe! The final blow of the night! So that’s it. I win.”

On several occasions during the interview McGregor reiterates his desire for a rematch with the Dagestani champion, pledging a different result if they meet inside the UFC cage for a second time. The Irishman, who has never pulled out of a fight in the UFC, mentioned having a foot injury the two weeks before the fight which, in his words, severely restricted his movement and made it impossible to run, which, in turn, had ramifications on his weight cut.

But not only that, McGregor was critical of the approach to the fight which was put in place by his team in which, he says, they paid too much attention to Khabib’s attacking threats and not his own.

“I am an attacker and my attack defends,” he said.

“In this camp for some reason the entire focus was defend, defend. Every round we would start in training I would have my back against the fence, or my back against the floor. I would always put myself in a vulnerable position. As the camp went on I just became defensive but that’s never what I do. It still irritates me to this day.”

A second bout between the two would be a hugely lucrative one for all involved, but security issues between the two warring teams would cause concern for UFC brass tasked with keeping a lid on one of the most intense rivalries the sport has ever seen.

Both fighters were suspended by the Nevada Athletic Commission for their actions, with McGregor’s ending in April. Nurmagomedov’s ends in July and he is expected to defend his title against interim champion Dustin Poirier during the UFC’s return to Abu Dhabi on September 7.