Conor McGregor has recently become the topic of many different conversations for several incidents outside of the Octagon. None, however, have grown as much steam as speculation about his involvement in a bar brawl in Dublin that has him crossed with an Irish drug cartel.
While there is obvious evidence that McGregor was involved in an ill-advised altercation with the referee at a recent Bellator event in Dublin, and he was caught on video using a disparaging term while consoling his teammate, there is little evidence that McGregor was involved in a bar brawl that involved him allegedly beating up a family member of the Kinahan cartel, an Irish drug gang.
McGregor himself does little to refute such rumors, generally using such speculation to keep his social media profile firing on all cylinders, which is exactly what he did following a recent court appearance for a speeding violation.
When reporters asked McGregor for a response to the alleged threats on his life, he responded with his usual verve, “Come and get me.”
Conor McGregor @TheNotoriousMMA drives away from court, saying ‘Come and get me’ pic.twitter.com/ee41k2WYwK
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) November 30, 2017
While McGregor is fueling the fire, his father is doing his best to extinguish it.
“It’s an absolute nonsense story,” Tony McGregor told the Irish Mirror on Thursday. “It’s grown legs and it’s getting that ridiculous – it’s become funny. We have nothing to fear here whatsoever. There’s no one after us for anything. We’re a law-abiding family and we’ve stayed a law-abiding family.”
Claims of a bar brawl involving Conor McGregor and an Irish cartel certainly sells papers and drives clicks to websites, but there appears to be little fact to back the speculation.
The Irish Mirror’s report went on to note that the gardia (the Irish police force) were aware of the reports, but confirmed that there had not been a single complaint filed regarding the alleged incident.
“I’d view 95-percent of that story as nonsense and the other 5-percent is overly exaggerated, and that’s it,” Tony McGregor continued, alluding to the idea that his son may have been involved in some sort of incident, but not the one purported by those looking to cash in on the story.
If such a bar brawl occurred, leading to Conor McGregor becoming a target for extortion from the cartel, which is one of the more popular rumors floated, it would be surprising if McGregor’s boss at the UFC wouldn’t have been contacted about it. UFC president Dana White said recently that he is highly skeptical of the claims and doesn’t have any first-hand knowledge of such an incident.
It isn’t a stretch to think that McGregor might be involved in an incident in a bar. But even if that is eventually proven to be true, it certainly sounds as if the incident in question, if it isn’t simply a fabrication, has been blown well out of proportion.
