Last Friday, which was the weigh-in day for UFC 189, Urijah Faber, and Conor McGregor had an over hyped encounter just moments before the weigh-ins were set to take place.
Urijah Faber appeared on the MMA Hour on a special Tuesday edition of the show to discuss this incident as well as promote the upcoming season of the Ultimate Fighter, which he co-hosts the show with Conor McGregor. Tapings will begin shortly and the show is set to premiere later this year on Fox Sports 1.
According to Faber, he was just playing around with McGregor, but McGregor was not messing around with Faber.
“I was in the hallway backstage and there was one men’s bathroom with one toilet, one sink, you know, everything else, and there’s a female one, so I’m waiting in line and there’s a guy behind me who was like ‘you should check the girls,’ cuz there’s a lot more guys backstage at UFC than there are girls. And I said no, I’ll check into it if you watch the door for me. So I go into the bathroom, I told this guy, I’ll go pee real quick, I’ll be right out, just make sure if anyone comes they know I’m in there.”
“So I’m washing my hands and someone goes and tries to shake the knob, so I open the door, and it was someone trying to open the door for Conor, and as I’m walking out he’s walking and we’re nose to nose. It was super random, wasn’t in anyone’s locker room or anything like that, we were just in a hallway and it so happens that we get face to face, and the guy looks like he was gonna die, it was crazy.”
Then the action took place…
“He’s like, ‘what’s up little man’ and he rubs my head and I grabbed his stomach and was feeling his ribs, his scrawny little rib,” Faber said. “And I was like ‘man, are you gonna survive?’ I don’t know what he’s thinking, he went, like an armdrag to a double, I mean, he was doing a move and I just had the instinct to turn back do a little wrestling, so I redrag hold both his arms because I don’t know what he’s thinking. So I hold both his arms against the wall, I don’t know if he’s going to use his chin or what’s in his head, he goes “get your f—— hands off me,” I’m like, dude, I don’t have my hands on you, motherf——.’
“He just walked away and went to the bathroom, then I just walked away too,” Faber said. “It was kind of confusing, it wasn’t like a real altercation. I don’t think he was trying to go for a massive takedown right before weigh-ins. I don’t know where it got heated a little bit.”
When the footage was released online, it looked bad and a possible risk for the UFC’s biggest star just one day before the biggest fight of his life.
However, just two days following the incident and the event, the UFC announced the two would not fight, but coach against each other on the upcoming season of the Ultimate Fighter.
This led to rumors that the incident looked rigged. Even Faber agrees that it looks rigged, but claims that it was not and it was just one of those things that just happened.
“It does look like it was rigged,” Faber said. “I was thinking the same thing. It was super weird in general, but it is what it is.”
