UFC 229 may forever be remembered for the infamous brawl that took place after the main event title fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor. From a superficial standpoint, it was a melee that erupted when Khabib jumped the fence after supposedly being taunted by Dillon Danis, one of McGregor’s cornermen.
“The Notorious” never really spoke in detail about the incident from his perspective, until recently during an interview with motivational speaker Tony Robbins.
“So what happened was, the fight was done, the match was done,” McGregor said (transcript by PunditArena.com). “He [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. I like to call it ‘scurried away’ cause they’re little rats they are.
“He jumped in to cause this chaos and attack. I saw this take place, I got up off the ground and said ‘ok, now I’m back in the mix’, jumped on top of the cage, as I jumped on top of the cage, his brother came sprinting across and jumped on top of the cage also to climb in and help him.”
“I seen him there and it was like a Christmas present,” he added. “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.”
McGregor says he remained aware of what was happening amid the chaos. He also recalled landing shots of his own as he was being blindsided and attacked by some of Khabib’s teammates.
“They came right over my back, right over my back,” McGregor said. “The first one, the Chechen man, ran right out in front of me and went over to the brother who got smacked and was like ‘what happened’ and then turned back and saw me.
“But I had already saw him so as he turned back. Boom! I smacked him. He wobbled. As I smacked him and wobbled him, another one jumped over the back and he sly-hooked me from the side. 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 100mph towards me. He threw a right hand. As he threw that right hand I threw a left. Boom!
McGregor, of course, remains proud of how he handled himself during the brawl.
“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! That’s it. I win. [laughs]”
McGregor foresees a rematch with Khabib down the line, as he did acknowledge his defeat that night.
“I gave my respect and congrats, he won the match – let’s see what happens next time,” he said. “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 respected it, I was defeated on the night.”
Khabib is currently being set up to defend his title against interim 155-pound champion Dustin Poirier. Nothing has been finalized just yet, but the fight is being targeted to take place at UFC 242 on September 7th in Abu Dhabi.
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