Conor McGregor relives UFC 229 brawl, underlines interest in Khabib Nurmagomedov rematch

Conor McGregor gave his first detailed account of what transpired at the UFC 229 post-fight brawl from his point of view in a recent interview with motivational speaker Tony Robbins.

“The Notorious” described lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov as “a rat” when he reflected on how he left the Octagon to direct his attention toward his corner, specifically Dillon Danis.

“What happened was, the fight was done, the match was done…he 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 because they’re little rats, they are. They scurried away,” McGregor told Robbins.

The Dubliner went on to reveal that he offered his victorious opponent congratulations and underlined his intentions to face him in a rematch.

“I gave my respect, ‘Congrats,’ he won the match, let’s see what happens next time. 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. I respect that I was defeated on the night.”

McGregor gave a detailed account of everything that happened after the final bell had rung, highlighting that him seeing Nurmagomedov heading in the direction of his corner made him spring back into action.

“He jumped in and caused this chaos and went to attack, but really…he was just trying to hide away when he jumped out…so he didn’t really do anything. I saw this take place, I got up off the ground and thought, ‘Ok, now I’m back in the mix,’” he said.

“I jumped on top of the cage, as I jumped on top of the cage, his brother came sprinting across the cage and jumped on top of the cage also, to climb in and help him join the fight. I seen him there and it was like a Christmas present. He was right there and I just smacked him in the eye socket and we started fighting on top of the cage. It got broken up, we ended up in the cage then and he was trying to get passed the security and I was just kind of watching everything.”

McGregor went on to describe how he ended up tussling with two more of Nurmagomedov’s cornermen and how he felt he won because he landed the last shot of the night.

“I’m very self defense minded, I have been since I was growing up. I know where my entrances and exits are. I’m very aware of my surroundings. When the fight was breaking out and I knew there were people coming in and out, there were a lot of rogue people where I didn’t know who was with who. So I backed myself up against the cage wall where I thought I was good, but what happened was, two of his teammates jumped over from right behind me. For me, with my mindset, it was fascinating to watch that back. I got to a place where I was good, I got to a safe place where I could see any oncoming threat and deal with it.

“They came right over my back. The first one, the Chechen man, ran in front of me and went over to the brother that got smacked and was like, ‘What happened?’ I don’t know what he was saying. Then he turned back and saw me, but I had already saw him. As he turned back—BOOM—I smacked him, he wobbled. As I smacked him and rocked him, another one jumped in from over the back and he sly hooked me from the side, I covered up and that got separated. And then the final one was the original brother who was on top of the cage. He broke free from the security, ran at a hundred miles an hour towards me. He threw a right hand, as he threw the right hand I threw a left hand—BOOM. There’s an image, an aerial image, of the right hand whipping by my face and then my left hand landing flush down the pipe—the final blow of the night.

“So, that’s it, I win,” he said before bursting into laughter.