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Conor McGregor Crashes UFC 223 Presser, Goes Shitballs Insane

McGregor tried throwing a guardrail at a bus full of fighters, and generally rained chaos on the event.
Screen capture via Felice Herrig

Conor McGregor is not a happy dude at the moment. He recently called the UFC a bunch of cunts, and then today, he popped up at the Barclays Center for a press conference leading up to Saturday night's UFC 223 event and caused quite a scene.

Before we get into the "what," let's get into the "why." Since winning his lightweight title at UFC 205 in November 2016, McGregor has not stepped foot in the octagon to defend it. As a result, Dana White said McGgregor would be stripped of the belt, and the winner of the UFC 223 main event would win it. Initially, Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov were set to battle for the belt this Saturday, but for the fourth time, that fight will not go down. Instead it will be Nurmagomedov and Max Holloway facing off for it after Ferguson pulled out with an injury.

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Regardless of who is fighting, McGregor is less than pleased.

That first shot across the bow came in the early morning hours Thursday. Later this afternoon, McGregor invaded Barclays and wreaked havoc. It seems this all went down after the press conference and McGregor wanted to get at some of the fighters who were loaded on a bus leaving the arena. To achieve this he tried…throwing a guard rail at the bus?

He was intercepted by someone, but that did not deter his efforts.

From the sound of the video, Michael Chiesa—who is (was?) scheduled to fight Anthony Pettis at the event—suffered some kind of cut on his face in the scrum, and the bus sustained some damage to the windshield. It's unclear why exactly McGregor is so incensed—he could very well be defending his belt Saturday night if he so chose—but Bloody Elbow reports that Nurmagomedov and longtime McGregor friend and teammate Artem Lobov got into a little scrap in a Brooklyn hotel two nights ago.

After all craziness, McGregor dashed out of Barclays and hopped into a waiting getaway car and rode off.

It apparently will not be a clean getaway, however, as Dana White has reportedly claimed that NYPD has issued a warrant for McGregor's arrest.

We will update as we learn more.

UPDATE (April 6, 10:00am EST)

NYPD formally charged McGregor with three counts of misdemeanor assault and one count of felony criminal mischief, per the New York Post. McGregor and Cian Cowley, an Irish fighter in McGregor's entourage are expected to be arraigned in court this morning. Both fighters turned themselves in on Thursday night.

After McGregor threw a hand dolly in through the back window, ESPN's Brett Okamotob confirmed that fighter Michael Chiesa was cut badly, and that Ray Borg suffered corneal abrasions. As a result, both Chiesa's fight against Anthony Pettis was canceled, along with Borg's fight against Brandon Moreno. UFC has also canceled the fight between Artem Lobov and Alex Carceres, as Lobov was a teammate of McGregors. In total, McGregor's assault caused three UFC matches to be canceled.

Understandably, UFC president Dana White told ESPN that he's not interested in helping McGregor for his ensuing legal issues.