UFC 205 press conference: Chaos breaks out between Conor McGregor and Eddie Alvarez

Conor McGregor kicked up another storm at a UFC pre-fight press conference at Madison Square Garden two days before the biggest event in the organisation’s history.

Featherweight champion McGregor takes on lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 and the Irishman was once again doing his best to rile his opponent before stepping into the octagon.

His press conference antics first made the news when he stole then featherweight champion Jose Aldo’s belt during their world tour for UFC 189 in 2015. He later got into trouble with the Nevada Athletic Commission, who fined him $150,000 for a bottle throwing incident involving Nate Diaz in August. McGregor arrived late for the UFC 202 pre-fight presser and things erupted, with the two exchanging insults as Diaz left in anger.

And now it nearly happened again. When the headline fighters gathered in front of the media in New York, something was missing. It was McGregor again, but whereas the Pride of Ireland was very apologetic for his tardiness ahead of the Diaz fight, stating he got the timing wrong, it was not the case this time.

Twenty minutes into the Madison Square Garden press conference, McGregor, wrapped in a mink overcoat, danced his way in past UFC president Dana White to steal Alvarez’s lightweight belt, shouting: “Sorry I’m late, I just don’t give a f***!”

Alvarez, who was off the stage at the time, jumped back on and snatched his belt from McGregor’s seat. The two fighters then squared off, with White in the middle attempting to keep the peace.

That was until Alvarez threw a chair behind McGregor, who thought had been thrown at him. Furious, McGregor grabbed the chair and held it over his head as if he was about to hurl it at Alvarez. However, he was able to control himself and dropped it.

Once everything had calmed down, the 28-year-old Dubliner, who had been dragged away at this point, was allowed back on stage and in typical McGregor fashion said: “I wonder how much a chair would have cost me?”

Thankfully, the rest of the press conference was incident free, but it’ll be interesting to see if either fighter is punished like McGregor and Diaz were in August.

What it has done is create more intrigue and excitement for the fight, and we shouldn’t be surprised if UFC 205 breaks record viewing figures as a result.