Despite accepting a plea deal in lieu of jail time for his felony assault arrest in April just days before UFC 223 in Brooklyn, New York, Conor McGregor continues to see fallout from his attack on a bus holding UFC fighters.
One of those fighters, Michael Chiesa, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in Kings County (New York) against McGregor. Chiesa claims McGregor caused "serious personal, economic, and other injury" damage to him after McGregor maniacally tossed a dolly through the window of a bus on April 5.
The 30-year-old Chiesa (14-4) was forced to withdraw from his scheduled bout against Anthony Pettis at UFC 223. He was still paid $48,000 by UFC despite his fight being canceled but lost out on a chance to double it with a victory. Chiesa went on to lose to Pettis via second-round submission after Chiesa missed weight ahead of their rescheduled meeting at UFC 226 in July.
According to online court records, Chiesa alleges that McGregor, "without permission or suitable reason, and without provocation, entered a room and/or area at the subject location and did take a hand truck, a barricade, and/or other heavy objects, and throw it/them into a bus in which plaintiff and others were occupying, causing property damage to the bus and physical damage and injuries to the plaintiff."
In addition, Chiesa is suing the Barclays Center for failing to prevent McGregor from entering "what should have been a secured location," claiming arena security "failed to prevent or intervene" in the altercation.
McGregor's surprise attack, which took place after the close of UFC 223 media day on the Thursday of fight week, was in reaction to Khabib Nurmagomedov slapping McGregor's teammate, Artem Lobov, in an incident that was caught on camera at the fight hotel and in reaction to comments Lobov allegedly made online.
The subsequent attack on the bus injured a UFC employee and led to four fights on the UFC 223 card being cancelled or affected. The coach of women's strawweight champion Rose Namajunas, who was unhurt physically despite being on the bus, still suffers emotional trauma from the attack and strongly considered withdrawing from her rematch with Joanna Jedrzejczyk that weekend.
Nurmagomedov (26-0) went on to defeat late replacement Al Iaquinta in the main event of UFC 223 to capture the vacant 155-pound title stripped from McGregor (21-3) due to inactivity. Following UFC's controversial decision not to discipline McGregor after he accepted a plea deal in July and was mandated to perform community service, the promotion instantly booked a Nurmagomedov-McGregor bout headlining UFC 229 on Oct. 6 in Las Vegas that is expected to break the company's pay-per-view record for buys.
Chiesa's filing is the first known civil suit against McGregor for the incident.
