Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports
Conor McGregor acknowledges that the pre-fight build-up for UFC 229 against Khabib Nurmagomedov may have gotten a little out of hand.
Right now, UFC 229 is one of the highest MMA events in history after racking up more than two million pay-per-view buys. It also drew in 20,034 fans that generated a live gate of $17.2 million.
All these record-setting numbers can be pointed to the pre-fight build-up between headliners Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor. The bad blood between the two spilled over after the fight, resulting a brawl between both camps that led to multiple fighter suspensions.
Looking back on it more than a year later, “The Notorious” went on to admit that things may have gotten a little overboard during the lead-up.
“Some of the things maybe [went] too far but it is what it is,” McGregor told ESPN’s Ariel Helwani in a UFC 246 pre-fight sit-down (transcript by MMA Fighting). “It’s the fight business. At the end of the day, it went the way it went. That’s it.
“It wasn’t just said. There were actions that led to what was said. It didn’t just get to words. There was actions that led to those words. Like things throughout the course of the build up like with the Artem [Lobov] situation.
“Things that maybe slipped under the radar like it was me that began all this. Whatever, it did get very, very personal,” he added.
Having learned from that experience, McGregor says he will be focusing more on his fighting skills than what he’ll be saying on the mic in a possible rematch with “The Eagle.”
“I’m taking a backstep from that and I’m focusing on the skills. It’s a very skillful bout,” he said. “He poses a specific style set and I pose a specific style set and it’s an interesting clash with two fully focused fighters and that’s what will happen in the next bout. I look forward to it, to settling it.
“I look forward to that competition fully focused. You can see the shape of me. Everyone knows. No matter what, that man can run but he cannot hide from it.”
McGregor will likely be closely watching Khabib defend his title for the third time against Tony Ferguson at UFC 249 on April 18th in Brooklyn.