The California Kid confirms that the confrontation he had with the Notorious at the UFC 189 weigh-ins was not a set up.
There was a lot of confusion over that heated backstage wrestling match between Conor McGregor and Urijah Faber at the UFC 189 weigh-ins. Both fighters grabbed a hold of each other and appeared to talk smack before the whole thing was broken up.
“It does look like it was rigged. I was thinking the same frigging thing. It was super weird in general, but it is what it is, ” Fabersaid on the MMA Hour.
“I was backstage and there was one men’s bathroom with one toilet and one sink, everything else and there was a female one. I’m waiting in line for the bathroom and there was someone behind me.So I go in the bathroom and I told this guy, ‘I’m just going to pee real quick and I’ll be right out, just make sure if anyone come they know I’m in here.”
“So anyways, I’m washing my hands and somebody’s trying to shake the knob and I’m like, this is weird. So, I open the door and it was somebody trying to open the door for Conor and as I’m walking out, he’s walking in and we’re honestly like nose-to-nose.”
Faber then explained that he then came face-to-face with McGregor, completely at random, when the whole thing almost kicked off.
“Guy looks like he was going to die, man. He said ‘what’s up little man?’ and he rubbed my head and I grabbed his stomach and I was feeling his ribs, his scrawny little ribs and I was like ‘man, are you going to survive?”
“I don’t know what he was thinking, it was like an arm drag to a double, he was doing a move, and I just had instincts to turn back and I ended up doing a re-drag and ended up holding this guy’s arms because I didn’t know what this guy was thinking. So, I was holding both his arms against the wall. I didn’t know if he was going to lose his shit or what’s going on in his head.”
The California Kid revealed the Notorious reacted aggressively to the defensive manouvre, but it quickly fizzled out before things escalated any further.
“He says, ‘Get your fucking hands off me!’ and I’m like, ‘Dude, I don’t have my hands on you, motherfucker.’ It was completely off guard for me, and he just walked away and went to the bathroom and I walked away too.”
McGregor and Faber will be coaching opposite each other int the new season of TUF: US vs Europe which is set to air in September.
