Conor McGregor’s decision to hurl a metal dolly through the window of a bus carrying Khabib Nurmagomedov and several other fighters at Barclays Center remains one of the most controversial moments in MMA history. The incident, which came during UFC 223 fight week in April 2018, capped a rivalry that had been building for a couple of years.
By the time McGregor arrived in Brooklyn on a private jet, the tension had already gone well beyond normal pre-fight mind games. Khabib Nurmagomedov had emerged as the UFC’s best lightweight in 2017, called out McGregor after his submission win over Michael Johnson at UFC 205 in New York, and the two had already shared a brief but heated backstage confrontation after that event.
The build-up before Barclays Center
The rivalry took on a sharper edge during UFC 223 fight week when Khabib Nurmagomedov confronted Artem Lobov at the fighter hotel in New York and appeared to slap him. Less than 48 hours later, McGregor was on his way to Brooklyn.
That sequence is important because it shows how quickly the situation escalated. This was not a flashpoint created in a single moment. It was the product of months of hostility, public insults and confrontation, with both men trading increasingly personal blows in and out of the cage.
What McGregor did on site
At Barclays Center, McGregor hurled a metal dolly through the window of a bus carrying Nurmagomedov and other fighters. The attack shook fight week and immediately became a defining image of the rivalry.
It also raised the stakes for everything that followed. Once an incident moves from verbal confrontation to physical damage, the sport is dealing with something far beyond promotion. That is why this moment is still remembered as one of the most controversial in MMA history.
A rivalry that had already turned personal
The dispute was fuelled by sharp words from both sides. Khabib Nurmagomedov mocked McGregor as a fighter who had tapped and then gone on to chase headlines, while also pointing to the size of the Russian fan base compared with the Irish one. McGregor, meanwhile, fired back with his own dismissive language.
Artem Lobov also played a part in the wider tension. He challenged the idea that anyone was afraid, insisting McGregor would show up no matter what and describing him as a true fighter and champion. That made the later attack even more explosive, because it came after a chain of personal exchanges rather than an isolated confrontation.
McGregor had also spent much of 2017 pursuing a boxing bout with Floyd Mayweather, which meant the UFC rivalry was developing alongside his wider celebrity and combat-sports profile. But the Barclays Center bus attack ensured that his feud with Nurmagomedov remained the central issue.
For Islam Makhachev, who sits in the same wider lightweight conversation, the lesson from this period is simple: rivalries at the top of the division can become bigger than the sport itself. In this case, the line between promotion and chaos was crossed in Brooklyn, and the image of that dolly through the bus window still defines the story eight years on.
