Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was expected to put Conor McGregor in the pay-per-view (PPV) main event of UFC 219 in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he would attempt to unify the division titles against interim straphanger Tony Ferguson on Dec. 30, 2017.
Instead, officials have reportedly sent him to the sidelines.
That’s because “Notorious” blew a gasket at the Bellator 187 mixed martial arts (MMA) event last Friday in Dublin, Ireland, and had a physical confrontation with referee Marc Goddard (watch it), which then led to a fadeaway bitchslap against an official (video).
While the Mohegan Tribe Department of Regulation was unable to impose any sort of penalties against McGregor, UFC is making a statement by reportedly removing him from its year-end super show, though Ferguson should be considered collateral damage.
“I had some executives from UFC contact me within two hours after what occurred and they basically said to me that it’s completely unacceptable in their eyes and that they will be doing something,” Mike Mazzulli, president of the Association of Boxing Commissions told The MMA Hour.
Probably a bad time to ask for that equity.
“They did inform me that he was set to be on the December 30th card and he will not be on it,” Mazzulli continued. “So I do commend UFC to some extent for doing that. On the other hand, I will be looking at it, I will be speaking to my attorney's upon returning to United States to see if I have any action."
While an extended vacation — particularly when you have the kind of money McGregor has — is not exactly the stiffest of punishments, McGregor did set out to become the highest-paid athlete in 2017 after making bank against Floyd Mayweather.
Don’t worry, he’s still got time (assuming we don’t get a repeat of this).
There has been no official announcement from UFC at this time; however, you can expect that to change sooner, rather than later.