Conor McGregor Charged With Assault

(Former?) UFC fighter Conor McGregor has been formally charged with three counts of misdemeanor assault and one count of felony criminal mischief, according to the NYPD. McGregor turned himself in to police last night after storming a media event in Brooklyn and throwing a bunch of shit at a bus carrying UFC fighters.

Also charged with assault and criminal mischief was Cian Cowley, an Irish fighter and part of McGregor’s entourage. The two are expected to be arraigned in court this morning.

McGregor was apparently mad over the announcement that he’s being stripped of the UFC lightweight title which he won in 2016 and hasn’t defended since (though he did find the time to lose a boxing match to Floyd Mayweather, which made him enough money that he doesn’t ever have to fight again unless he wants to). The lightweight title will go to the winner of Saturday’s bout between Max Holloway and Khabib Nurmagomedov, and this pissed McGregor off something fierce.

McGregor and his entourage were reportedly let in to the arena by employees of his website, who were credentialed to attend the event. In the arena’s loading bay he tried and failed to throw a barricade at a bus carrying fighters including Nurmagomedov, and succeeded in breaking a window with a hand truck. TMZ Sports got video of part of the altercation:

And video from inside the bus:

Because of the fracas, three match scheduled for Saturday’s UFC 223 card are now off. Michael Chiesa suffered facial cuts and will not fight Anthony Pettis, while Ray Borg suffered corneal abrasions and will not fight Brandon Moreno. In addition, the UFC announced that McGregor’s teammate, Artem Lobov, has been removed from his fight against Alex Caceres. To compensate, one fight has been moved up from the undercard and the card will go on with 10 matches.

Because nothing involving the UFC can be allowed to feel real even if it started that way, Nurmagomedov is turning the incident into hype.

“I am laughing inside,” Nurmagomedov said. “You broke window? Why? Come inside. You know UFC don’t let you come inside. If you real gangster why don’t you come inside? This is big history gangster place. Brooklyn. You want to talk to me? Send me location. We have to talk? I am gonna come, no problem.”

[...]

“To be honest, I don’t want him to go to jail. We have to fight.”