UFC lightweight champion Conor Mcgregor caused chaos at a Bellator event on Friday in Dublin, when he jumped into the cage after teammate Charlie Ward won via knockout over Irishman John Redmond.
Andy Ryan, head coach, was cornering John Redmond who was knocked out by Ward. Which prompted McGregor to storm the cage in celebration.
Referee Marc Goddard attempted to remove Notorious, which prompted Mcgregor to shove him back and slapped the Bellator official.
Coach Ryan speaking to MMA Fighting, Bellator was also to blame for all the chaos caused by Mcgregor, because security did the little role to stop him.
“That’s Conor’s good friend in there that has won, so of course emotions are going to be running high. For me, I think the promotion should have Conor and his guests in a better position,” explained Ryan.
“Conor was standing directly behind us. He wasn’t interfering with our cornering or anything like that, but there was no event security around him whatsoever apart from the people that he had with him.
“I think it meant a lot for them to have him at their show, and they didn’t think about what would happen if things boiled over.
“A fan jumped into the cage during the last fight of the night and the security dealt with the situation straight away. They weren’t treating Conor like anyone else that jumped in the cage, and that’s probably why things were able to escalate to the level that it did.”
Ryan went on to explain the whole situation and said Mcgregor should have acted as security itself as fans follow him all way to Octagon. Things got worse when referee Goddard had to allegedly stop the fight without communicating to the commission due to of Conor’s mess.
The 10-second warning went off, and me and John Donnelly were making our way towards the cage. I didn’t see John (Redmond) getting hit, but then I obviously saw the aftermath,” he remembered.
“After Conor jumped into the cage, I had to start doing security on the cage door myself because a load of fans were trying to run in with him.”
“With all this going on, Marc Goddard hadn’t got a chance to talk to the commission to see what was happening. He had jumped in just before the round ended, and with everything that was going on, he hadn’t got time to establish whether the fight had been brought to an end yet,” said Ryan.
“He was trying to get some order back in the cage, and that’s why he said, ‘the fight’s not over, lads, you’re going to have to leave the cage.’
“That’s when all the mayhem happened. I think Conor thought the fight was going to continue and that’s when he went over to him and had words.”
Coach showed his disappointment with Bellator and the commission because it seemed they were more worried about letting McGregor do what he wanted instead properly secure the chaos.
“What annoyed me was, Conor has his own security there, there was event security there, and they didn’t seem to have a grip on the situation at all. John Redmond nearly got trampled on.
“I honestly feel like the promotion, and the commission needs to take some of the blame here because they were more interested in trying not to upset Conor than looking after John Redmond. John missed out on some attention that he needed because the event security didn’t have a handle on the situation.”
The coach said the mark the fight had put on Irish MMA as a whole, something that Bellator didn’t even concern as they only wanted to gain the benefits of McGregor.
Irish MMA needs to place more security measures so such incidence shouldn’t occur again.
“The problem in Ireland is that people only know Conor McGregor and the UFC, they don’t look beyond that and see the amateur scene and the dedicated professionals that are trying to make it to the big stage. I just think the promotions wanted that. They wanted that big WWE scene in the cage. Irish MMA doesn’t want that, but the promotions certainly do.
“I think everyone knows Conor shouldn’t have done what he did, but what can you do? The real problem is that the sport doesn’t have proper recognition in the country, so there is no way to put safeguards in place to make sure these things don’t happen.
“I think it’s left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. Nobody in Ireland wanted to see this happen, and I know if the two lads went in there again they could show everyone how it was meant to go down. I think they both looked a lot better than they have previously, and I think with all the confusion after the knockdown, it’s probably the right thing to do.”
