UFC 229 fallout: Khabib Nurmagomedov could lose lightweight championship belt he worked for after melee
The Russian was the main protagonist in an all-out brawl inside the octagon and outside of it after the title fight with Conor McGregor
“The governor [Brian Sandoval] was here. When the governor’s in the room and goes running out ... the governor oversees the commission, so I’m sure it’s going to be ugly,” White said.
“Some people love that ... but for me, it’s a bad night.”
White said any other UFC fighters involved in the brawl would not fight in the organisation again. However, that would deprive him of an October 27 fight between Nurmagomedov’s teammate Zubaira Tukhugov and Artem Lobov, one of McGregor’s best friends. Tukhugov was a participant in Saturday night’s fracas. In April, McGregor came to Lobov’s defence when his colleague was confronted by Nurmagomedov in Brooklyn.
Nurmagomedov (27-0), after defeating McGregor in the fourth round by rear-naked chokehold in a dominant exhibition of his wrestling skill, was hardly contrite in a brief news-conference appearance.
“This is not my best side ... my father is going to smash me when I get home,” Nurmagomedov said. “But [McGregor] talked about my religion, my country, my father. He came to Brooklyn and went after my bus ... this is a respect sport, not trash talking. You cannot talk about religion, you cannot talk about nation.”
McGregor didn’t appear at the news conference. “Conor was more concerned about the fight [he lost],” White said.
“He was like, ‘We don’t like each other, whatever.’ He doesn’t care about charges. He cares about the fight.”
The commission’s first move was to hold Nurmagomedov’s guaranteed US$2 million purse indefinitely, and it’s unclear whether law enforcement will pursue charges.
White said Nurmagomedov should’ve “pulled [McGregor] up from the ground and said, ‘Hey, good fight,’ and got his belt. Even if you were the biggest Conor fan ever, you would at least have to respect him.
“What Khabib did to himself tonight, he was set up ... all the mean things that were said about him ... he won the fight. He looked great doing it. He had the opportunity to walk out of that place a champion. He would have looked like a stud, instead of flying over the cage and doing the things that he did. It should have been a very different night for him.”
Nurmagomedov re-entered the octagon and confronted White for not strapping on his championship belt. White said he was concerned if he did, the pro-McGregor crowd would’ve showered the octagon and fans below with debris.
“We had so many police here, I don’t even know if the city was safe tonight,” White cracked. “We had two [security] meetings tonight, one of them two fights before the main event. But what are you going to do when a guy flies like a monkey over a cage?”
White and some UFC fighters who spoke before him were concerned that casual fans who purchased the pay-per-view may conclude this kind of behaviour comes with cage fighting.
“This isn’t the last time guys are going to say mean things to each other. They’ve been saying mean things for 18 years in the UFC. This is the first time this happened,” White said.
