Actions that were once vilified and threatened the career of Conor McGregor, have now become a promotional tool ahead of 'super-fight' with Khabib Nurmagomedov.
April 5th 2018 marked a dark day for one of UFC's top stars and one that could have potentially cost several parties millions in revenue.
McGregor, in retaliation to his upcoming opponent's confrontation of his teammate Artem Lobov, arrived at the Barclays center in Brooklyn, New York ahead of UFC 223's promotional tour, with reportedly up to 20-men and chased Nurmagomedov onto a bus that contained several other fighters.
The Irishman attacked the bus and threw a metal dolly at one of the windows, shattering the glass, injuring Michael Chiesa and Ray Borg who were also on board; his actions were branded 'thuggish' and left many calling for the UFC to sanction The Notorious One.
No action was taken by Dana White and co. although the fighter's criminal conduct forced the NYPD to take action - resulting in community service and anger management classes following his trial two months later.
In August it was announced that the two men at the centre of the altercation would square of for the lightweight championship at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada in what many have labelled as the biggest event in UFC history.
During the promotion of the bout a number of videos have contained footage of the incident that led to McGregor's arrest, prompting the question, is it right to promote criminal actions in order to hype up an event and is glorifying these actions to sell a fight making light of the situation?
UFC have endured a lot of negative criticism since its inception in 1993, with Senator John McCain likening it to "Human Cockfighting" in its early formation, but its development and professionalism across the past two decades resulted in a sale to WME-IMG for $4.2 billion making it the highest purchase of any sports franchise/brand in history.
However, the leading figure for the company has been Irishman McGregor who was the first to capture two belts in two different weight classes at the same time, accomplishing the feat in 2017, his star power generated great interest and sparked a new revolution of fans across the globe, prompting a cross-sport boxing match with Floyd Mayweather, the pair's biggest pay day to date.
The increasing popularity and spotlight have made his actions that much more significant with the 30-year-old consistently publicly scrutinised for his outlandish comments, wild antics and as of recently, lack of appearances; with his last link to UFC being the bus incident, it prompted President Dana White to condemn his behaviour.
He said: "This is the most disgusting thing that has ever happened in the history of the company. After this disgusting, despicable move, I think everybody's relationship with Conor is going to be not great.
"This is the kind of bad decision you make that turns a lot of people off; you do not come into the Barclays Center, attack a bus full of people who are fighting the next day. We are disgusted with him right now, completely disgusted." [Full interview available here]
During the interview with ESPN, White claimed there would be repercussions taken against Conor from the UFC's standpoint, the promotion have stepped in once before when in November 2017 McGregor scaled the cage in fellow company Bellator to celebrate with teammate Charlie Ward, the Irishman was confronted by referee Marc Goddard and then pushed the official, resulting in a potential bout with Tony Ferguson to be halted.
However with a return to the Octagon set for early October coupled with a chance to once again become a champion of his sport, it does not look as if any action has been taken.
While as a marketing tool, the importance of McGregor's behaviour in an important chapter to document in the narrative between himself and Nurmagomedov, but indicating it was purely to set up a fight likens the sport to a professional wrestling storyline.
The UFC have chosen to glorify criminal behaviour and violence of a contracted fighter as part of a storyline over the undoubted talents of the two athletes, showing that the glitz and glamour of controversy may be a more important factor than ability.
This begs the question; have UFC shown they need McGregor far too much to punish him?
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