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Conor McGregor was directly related to three bouts being canceled ahead of Saturday’s UFC 223 in Brooklyn, N.Y. The tally nearly reached four.
When McGregor and his crew stormed the loading dock area at Barclays Center following the UFC 223 Media Day festivities, launching an appliance dolly through the window of a van full of fighters, Michael Chiesa and Ray Borg suffered injuries that forced them out of their respective bouts.
McGregor’s teammate, Artem Lobov, was one of his crew during the melee, so UFC president Dana White immediately removed him from the UFC 223 fight card.
UFC strawweight champion Rose Namajunas was seated near Chiesa in the van and reportedly was inches away from being one of those in the line of fire. Needless to say, it shook her up.
To paint a better picture of the situation, McGregor was accompanied by a dozen or so individuals that were hunting for UFC 223 headliner and McGregor nemesis Khabib Nurmagomedov, who was in the van with Chiesa and Namajunas.
Namajunas has repeatedly admitted to having anxiety issues stemming from a rough upbringing. When McGregor and his crew attacked the van, her anxiety was understandably triggered.
“It shook me up because I didn’t know how far it was gonna escalate,” Namajunas recounted at the UFC 223 post-fight press conference. “They’re obviously not directly after me, but I’m just caught in this scenario, my imagination goes crazy after all the things that I’ve been through in the past. I know that anybody can have a gun or a knife. We don’t know. I jump to the negative pretty quickly.”
UFC Releases Astonishing Footage of Conor McGregor Going Berserk
Namajunas admitted that she had thoughts of possibly cancelling her fight with Jedrzejczyk, but ultimately overcame her anxiety and made the walk to the Octagon. She walked out of the cage with a unanimous-decision victory and the belt still wrapped firmly around her waist.
