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Conor McGregor’s last fight was technically against Floyd Mayweather in August, but the UFC champion returned to the cage last week after he decided it would be a good idea to shove a ref and slap a commissioner overseeing a fight between Charlie Ward and John Redmond at Bellator 187 in Dublin. McGregor took to Twitter to try and defend his actions, but it appears the Association of Boxing Commissions didn’t buy his explanation.
After the incident, ABC president Mike Mazzulli promised there would be repercussions, and today he lived up to his word when he announced McGregor will not be fighting at UFC 219, which is scheduled for December 30th. The UFC apparently agreed to pull McGregor from the fight almost immediately after the incident occurred but waited a few days to make it official.
Mazzulli explained his rationale in a statement, saying:
“The bottom line is that he was unprofessional, disrespectful, and it was not acceptable in my eyes in any situation. I don’t care if it was anyone else jumping in the cage, we don’t do that as a professional. Mr. McGregor is not bigger than MMA. I had executives from the UFC contact me within two hours after what occurred. They basically said to me that it’s completely unacceptable in their eyes, and they will be doing something. They did inform me that he was set to be on the December 30th card, and he will not be on it.”
Earlier this month, Dana White said he expected McGregor to return to the Octagon by the end of the year, and all signs pointed to the Irishman taking on interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson in the main event. Today’s announcement is the first time that the hypothetical matchup was actually confirmed, but now it looks like we’ll have to wait until UFC 220 (at the very minimum) before McGregor returns to the sport.
McGregor hasn’t responded to the news, but given his reputation for running his mouth, I imagine will get a colorful response pretty soon.