99% of the stuff that goes on in the UFC is promotional. You will see heated rivalries before a fight and then you see them hugging after a fight.
This specific case was not promotional no matter how many times someone keeps saying it.
You don't do the things that McGregor did with bus incident and you don't do the things that happened after this fight as promotion.
This was two times that both sides were truly upset at the other beyond any kind of promotion theatrics.
This was personal for both and BOTH got carried away.
Sad part of it is that Dana will get angry about it and rant and rave, but in the end when he calms down...or gives it time for the fans, it will just be an excuse for a rematch that will make just as much money if not more. Of course Dana is the "face" of the UFC...however he is no longer the owner of the UFC now so maybe things will change, but I doubt it.
The dolly throwing incident was BOTH promotional and personal.
What exactly was the punishment? 3 days of community service? LOL.
Again the dollars don't lie.
Khabib is a hard guy to sell a fight for. He's a Russian that is Islamic, not exactly the UFCs target crowd.
Yet he was paid 2M for this fight.
His last fight was 500K.
McGregor showed up with a gang of dudes he flew over from Ireland and no one got off the bus. His team tossed stuff at the bus and it culminated with Conor throwing a dolly at the window. But no one was ever actually hit, zero punches were thrown. It absolutely went too far and was stupid. Did he know the bus window would shatter? Who knows.But it promoted the crap outta a fight between McGregor and Khabib. Conor wasn't fighting for anything like previous UFC salaries. And this incident was the chief driving factor in this fight drawing so much interest.
It was all so conveniently filmed from multiple angles...................
Saturday night was not about any bus incident.
Conor trash talked like he does every fight. He and Mayweather said wayyyy worse to each other.
Then hugged it out and cashed insane checks.
Conor peacocks and acts like an idiot for the pay checks.
He clearly is following Ali/Mayweather and other great promoters.
Guess what boys and girls? That's the way it is going.
Even really good dudes are trash talking big time to sell fights.
See Daniel Cormier.
It is where the money is.
This is no longer the UFC you grew up on where it's about skill.
That all ended when they brought in Brock Lesner the first time.
As to Khabib for him it was clearly personal.
Conor was promoting his whiskey and made flippant comments about Islam.
Khabib is NOT a promoter. So to him it was personal and he risked his fight check to attack a peon in the crowd.
No one want sot fight Khabib, everyone wants to fight McGregor.
Because everyone wants to get paid.