John Redmond believes that Conor McGregor overshadowed his Bellator fight is a major reason the stoppage occurs with Charlie Ward.
Their fight was the talk of the town in MMA world by all the wrong reasons on Friday night when UFC superstar Conor Mcgregor scaled into the ring in celebration with his Straight Blast Gym team-mate (SBG) Ward floored Redmond in the final second of the first round. However, referee Marc Goddard instructed him to leave the cage.
#McGregor coming back to the cage to celebrate more…….and to slap another commissioner!😳#BellatorDublin #MMA #MMAMadness #bellator pic.twitter.com/6xaAMUwWK7
— Bryan Lacey (@BryanLaceyMMA) November 10, 2017
Mcgregor’s entrance cause havoc- shoved referee Marc Goddard and slapped an official who tried to tell him to leave the cage on his second attempt to gain entry.
McGregor shouted "that was a fucking stoppage" and ran back towards the cage. Goddard then ejected him pic.twitter.com/OImxiwq7f7
— Peter Carroll (@PetesyCarroll) November 10, 2017
Irish veteran Redmond feels that invasion by ‘The Notorious’ was a contributing factor that the fight didn’t go into a second round.
Redmond spoke to MMA Fighting:
“We had a good fight in there, and I think him jumping into the cage overshadowed the whole fight and the whole event,”
“I don’t want to piss and moan about it. I don’t want anyone taking pity on me or anything like that. I didn’t get the win, but I showed I was in charge of the fight up until that big shot at the end of the round.
“I think the fight was far from finished and all the madness that was going on in there didn’t help me getting a chance to go out for the second.”
Redmond insisted that referee Goddard wanted the fight to continue, but Mcgregor forced the commission to stop the fight.
“I think there was a lot of panic in the ring as soon as he got in there. I think everybody was just concerned with getting him out of there as quickly as possible,” Redmond said.
“Marc Goddard was going to let the fight go into the second, but then the commission seemed to overrule his decision. I think that decision was swayed because of the circus and madness that was going down at the time. It was just a mad scene. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
John Redmond feels a rematch would be a great thing to do.
“I felt like I was bullying Charlie in there,” Redmond said. “He can say what he wants after the fight, but look at the footage. He took me down, I used my jiu-jitsu to get back to my feet, and I felt I dominated him for the whole fight.
“I’m not trying to say that the shot didn’t catch me, but by no means was I out. It was right at the end of the round, and I think I deserved to go into the second. Maybe if that madness didn’t go down, I would have got that.
“A rematch is the right way to go with this, and I think after all the interest our first fight generated it would be something Bellator would like to do.”
There have been no words from UFC lightweight champion McGregor since the incident happened, which has drawn widespread criticism.
