After Conor McGregor’s wreaked havoc at Barclays Center on Thursday the whole fight card of UFC 223 was left in bad shape as three fights had to be taken off as a direct result of his actions.
During the attack, Conor McGregor used a dolly to break the window of a minibus that was carrying several UFC fighters. As a result of the attack, which occurred during UFC 223’s media day, Michael Chiesa (who was scheduled to face ex-lightweight champ Anthony Pettis) suffered cuts to his head and face and flyweight Ray Borg (who was to fight Brendan Moreno on the preliminaries) ended with a scratched eye. Both fighters had to be taken off the card.
Other fighters, including Rose Namajunas, were visibly shaken by the attack, but suffered no serious injuries and will fight as scheduled.
Featherweight Artem Lobov, McGregor’s close friend and teammate, was part of the group that attacked the bus and scheduled to face Alex Caceres in a featherweight bout on the preliminary card, but his fight was consequently removed from the event by UFC president Dana White.
So, what was originally a 13-fight card, now looks like this:
Main Card
- Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Al Iaquinta – (Lightweight)
- Rose Namajunas vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk – (Women’s Strawweight)
- Calvin Kattar vs. Renato Carneiro – (Featherweight)
- Zabit Magomedsharipov vs. Kyle Bochniak – (Featherweight)
- Joe Lauzon vs. Chris Gruetzemacher – (Lightweight)
Preliminaries
- Felice Herrig vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz – (Women’s Strawweight)
- Ashlee Evans-Smith vs. Bec Rawlings – (Women’s Flyweight)
- Olivier Aubin-Mercier vs. Evan Dunham – (Lightweight)
- Devin Clark vs. Mike Rodriguez – (Light Heavyweight)
Not to mention the fact that this is a UFC event that since last Sunday had been struggling to find an opponent for lightweight fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov, who after much trouble will fight Al Iaquinta in the main event, but the New Yorker has no chance to win the title because he was two-tenths of a pound over the limit weight.
On the original card, Nurmagomedov was slated to fight against Toni Ferguson, but he had to be scratched after recently tearing his LCL.
Max Holloway was the replacement fighter, but he had to be scratched on Friday after he was declared unfit to fight as he could not safely make the weight cut. The organizers then tried to book Pettis, who was left without an opponent due to McGregor’s actions but also failed to make the weight needed by two-tenths of a pound.
Next in line was Paul Felder who possessed the right weight but wasn’t authorized to fight by the New York State Athletic Commission because he was not ranked high enough.
Once he was off the list the UFC was left with no choice but to ask Felder’s opponent: Iaquinta. Even though he can’t win the belt, UFC president Dana White already said that if he wins he will consider him de defacto champion.
