The head regulator at Bellator 187 in Dublin, Ireland has released a statement regarding the conduct of Conor McGregor on Friday night during the event.
After a victory for his teammate Charlie Ward, McGregor wildly stormed the cage to celebrate. When referee Marc Goddard intervened to restore order — McGregor was not a licensed cornerman and not allowed to be inside the cage — McGregor shoved him and tried to get in his face.
In a crazy scene, McGregor was escorted from the cage. He then tried to jump back in and slapped a Bellator staff member, Mike Johnson, in the face during that process.
Mike Mazzulli, the president of the Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports (ABC) and the director of the Mohegan Tribe Department of Athletic Regulation, was the lead regulator Friday night for the Bellator card. He is frequently brought overseas by Bellator to oversee regulatory operations in countries that do not have commissions.
In a statement Saturday, Mazzulli said that McGregor “jeopardized” the health and safety of the participants in the cage and “assaulted” both referee Marc Goddard and Johnson, the Bellator staffer.
Mazzulli wrote that he has been in contact with the UFC about McGregor’s behavior, as well as the ABC member commissions that license McGregor to fight.
The full statement is below:
While the Mohegan Tribe Department of Athletic Regulation (MTDAR) was regulating Bellator 187 in Dublin, Ireland, on November 10, 2017, the following events took place during the Ward vs Redmond bout.
Mr. Conor McGregor who was a spectator at the time, disrupted the event by scaling the cage prior to the conclusion of the bout. Mr. McGregor’s conduct jeopardized the health and safety of the bout participants by delaying necessary medical attention to the fighters that were injured during the round.
In addition, Mr. McGregor assaulted Referee Mark [sic] Goddard and a Bellator staff.
The MTDAR has been in consultation with the upper management of the UFC regarding Mr. McGregor’s inappropriate and unacceptable behavior.
The MTDAR has also contacted members of the Association of Boxing Commissioners that have licensed Mr. McGregor in their jurisdictions to inform them of Mr. McGregor’s behavior.
Mazzulli told MMA Fighting that any kind of sanction would have to come from a commission that licenses McGregor. McGregor has fought only in Nevada and New York over the last two years. Most recently, McGregor had a boxing match (a 10th-round TKO loss) to Floyd Mayweather in Las Vegas on Aug. 26.
McGregor has something of a history with Goddard. Last month at UFC Gdansk, Goddard had McGregor escorted back to the area of his seat, because he was standing near the cage attempting to coach his teammate Artem Lobov in a fight against Andre Fili.
Moments after that, after Lobov had lost a decision, McGregor repeatedly called Fili an anti-gay slur in a conversation with Lobov backstage that was captured on camera and put on social media by the UFC and broadcast partner BT Sport. Those posts were later deleted and McGregor apologized for his language a week later.
McGregor, 29, is the biggest star in MMA and the UFC lightweight champion.
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