John Kavanagh Says Conor McGregor Was ‘Overemotional’ At Bellator 187

This past weekend, Conor McGregor jumped the cage to celebrate teammate Charlie Ward’s victory, then had an altercation with the referee who tried to break things up. MMA Fighting reports that John Kavanagh, who was in Ward’s corner for the fight, spoke to TV3’s The Six O’clock Show about the incident. Here are highlights:

On the bond between McGregor and Ward: “Charlie is one of Conor’s very close friends and he’s coming off two pretty devastating losses. He lost fast and hard in both his UFC fights and was dropped by the UFC and then he fought on Bellator. So, when you’re seeing someone that you’re that close with, with two bad defeats and then has a great victory in front of his hometown crowd…he got a bit emotional, jumped in and he didn’t realize that the fight had no actually been called. He thought when he knocked the guy down it was over, but it was actually just the end of the round. The fight wasn’t over. The referee was trying to tell him that the fight was over. It was pretty obvious it was over, in his defense. He was a little bit over emotional there, but you sort of understand when you know his and Charlie’s relationship over the last number of years.”

On McGregor’s reaction: “It’s the personal relationship that the two of them share. It’s like soccer players when they score goals and you see them running around and then some will go like this. It’s funny because Conor wouldn’t even do that for his own victory. He gets more involved when it’s his teammates’, his friends’, victories.”