Conor McGregor again skipped weigh-ins for his latest outing on The Ultimate Fighter, despite his close friend Lee Hammond taking to the scales.
The legendary two-weight world champion has been heavily criticised this season for his poor coaching and apparent lack of interest while working with his team of lightweight and bantamweight prospects. And he once again missed the pre-fight weigh-ins for the bout, even though he was coaching one of his best friends.
Hammond, 27, is one of Ireland's top prospects but is one of the fighters with the least professional experience on the card having only entered the paid ranks at the end of 2021. He has been a teammate of McGregor's at SBG Ireland, but missed his friend while tipping the scales for his bout with Kurt Holobaugh on last night's episode.
He ended up dominating the two round fight in one of the more one-sided bouts of the season so far, but was caught in a submission with just over a minute to go and tapped out, handing his pal his sixth loss as coach. Tensions boiled over after the fact as McGregor raged at rival coach Michael Chandler, eventually pushing his rival in a violent outburst.
Chandler has been much more hands-on as a coach throughout the season, and insisted that he would have shown up for the prospects had he been paired with them. "I'm sorry you guys are on that f***ing team," he told them after the altercation. "I would have been there for you."
McGregor defended his decision not to show up for his fighters' weigh-ins and declared that his attack on his rival showed that he cares about his fighters. He also noted that he has left them in the hands of top coaches such as SBG Ireland boss John Kavanagh, striking coach Owen Roddy, boxing trainer Phil Sutcliffe and Muay-Thai expert Cian Cowley.
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"I'm happy I got in there," McGregor told cameras after the incident. "Because they were trying to filter this thing about the weigh-ins, right? Chandler's trying to pick at that like I wasn't being involved, I'm setting it up, it's me who set it up first of all it's not like I just left them to their own devices.
"It's actually quite the opposite, they were left amongst the best... I wanted to show my team that I'm with them, I'm going to stand for them and make a case for them and that's what we done."
Chandler then added: "The tension is growing, this is doing nothing but motivating each of us for annihilating each other and getting into that octagon as soon as we possibly can with the entire world watching. I want to get my hand raised in a dominant performance against Conor McGregor."
