Conor McGregor is making his return to the octagon, but it feels like his personal life is still very much in the news for all the wrong reasons. Since his massive crossover fight with Floyd Mayweather in 2017, McGregor's reputation has absolutely spiraled, battling serious legal issues and sexual assault allegations that have kept him in the headlines for anything but his incredible work as an MMA fighter.
The Chaos of Brooklyn and Beyond
It all kicked off in 2018 with that absolutely wild bus incident at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Days after Khabib Nurmagomedov slapped McGregor's training partner Artem Lobov, McGregor rolled up with a dozen other dudes and stormed the loading dock, attacking a bus carrying Nurmagomedov and other UFC fighters. Dude literally threw a steel dolly at the window, shattering it and injuring multiple people! UFC fighter Al Iaquinta said, "No one knew what was going on. Everyone was, 'What the heck is this? What are we under attack from?' And then we saw Conor running, and we were like, 'Oh, all right.'" McGregor caught three counts of misdemeanor assault and one count of criminal mischief for that stunt, though a plea deal eventually knocked it down to just disorderly conduct. "The most disgusting thing that has ever happened in the history of the company," someone said, and honestly, you can't argue with it. Then, later that year, after his fight with Nurmagomedov on October 6, 2018, another brawl erupted. Nurmagomedov scaled the cage and went after one of McGregor's training partners. This sparked a massive fight, and McGregor got hit with a six-month suspension from the Nevada State Athletic Commission and a $50,000 fine. The rivalry went from intense to absolutely personal after that.A Troubling Pattern of Incidents
But it wasn't just the fight game that McGregor struggled with. In 2019, he got popped for robbery and criminal mischief in Miami for smashing a fan's phone. Video showed the guy trying to film him, and McGregor grabbed the phone and stomped on it. Wild stuff, even if the charges got dropped a couple months later. Then, in August of that same year, he was charged for punching a dude in a Dublin pub. He pleaded guilty to assault, got fined, and get this: he later bought the very pub where he threw the punch! That's a power move, but still a charge. The legal issues kept coming, too. In September 2020, he was arrested in France, on the island of Corsica, on suspicion of sexual assault and indecent exposure. He was released without charges a couple days later, but the headlines don't lie. Even in 2021, an interaction with rapper Machine Gun Kelly at the MTV Video Music Awards red carpet nearly went south, with McGregor lunging at the rapper and appearing to toss a drink his way, though he denied trying to fight. As McGregor tries to make his comeback, it feels like this long timeline of trouble is right there with him. He's hoping his personal life is finally back on track, but man, with all these incidents, charges, and allegations, it's a huge mountain to climb to get the focus back on his fighting. What kind of Conor McGregor steps into the octagon next? Everyone is watching to see if the chaos is truly behind him.This article was created with AI assistance and reviewed by Seattle On Tap editorial staff. Always verify information with official team sources.