McGregor-Khabib brawl the result of a business built on its continuing ability to monetise blood lust

It is not often that Mike Tyson declares himself morally outraged by what he has just seen at a sports event. But after the much-anticipated UFC title fight between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov in Las Vegas on Saturday, the boxer, who once bit off his opponent’s ear, tweeted his profound shock at the behaviour of the participants.

And there was plenty to be offended about. With McGregor lying prone in defeat in the ring, his Russian opponent had vaulted the top of the cage and dived into the crowd, apparently keen to continue the bout with members of the Irishman’s team.

Meanwhile, with attention diverted, a couple of the Russian’s mates had climbed into the ring and attacked McGregor. In the mayhem that ensued, three members of Nurmagomedov’s entourage were arrested, though subsequently released after McGregor declined to press charges. In its seemingly pre-planned explosion of punches and kicks, the post-fight scrap resembled nothing more than the invasion of Marseille by Russian hooligans during Euro 16. Though only a cynic would suggest there was anything beyond coincidence in the shared nationality of the proponents.

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The odd thing is, however, that anybody should have been surprised. Despite the public statements issued by the sport’s presiding figures, despite the withholding of the winner’s purse and the announcement of impending disciplinary action, this was, after all, a UFC promotion. And the unscripted brouhaha was just the natural consequence of a sport which has become a financial behemoth through the systematic promise of unhinged violence. This is a business built on its continuing ability to monetise blood lust.

Go to a UFC event and the possibility of danger tantalises. The very cage in which fights take place, as if the audience needs to be protected from participants, offers potent hint of a dark underbelly of unhinged aggression. Never mind that the fighters are reared on the self--control of martial arts, what much of the young, computer-game literate audience turn up for is the hope of witnessing something primordial.

In the person of Conor McGregor those who run UFC happened upon the ideal figurehead for their enticing cocktail of skill and danger. A brilliant athlete, but publicly unhinged, he has become the master of the art of trash-talking. It might have been borrowed from boxing, but his bragging and blarney have reached new levels of ugly provocation.

In the lengthy, choreographed build up to Saturday’s fight, in the pursuit of pay-per-view sales he had done everything from questioning his opponent’s bravery to attacking his team bus with a metal camera dolly. Instead of recognising the pantomime behind McGregor’s sneer, Nurmagomedov evidently took it to heart. Which, for the bankers of UFC was the perfect response: now it was personal.

Which is why the hand-wringing from those in control of the sport in the aftermath of Saturday’s brouhaha is so contemptible. None of them had stepped in to tone down the pre-fight nonsense. Nobody sought to diffuse the growing animosity between the fighters. What happened in Vegas on Saturday was the very consequence of marketing.

The truth is, for the UFC money-men, as the footage of the unscheduled post-fight action was shared across the globe, this was manna. Because, as anyone who has been to a UFC event will know, the promise is invariably greater than the delivery: most of the time the audience witnesses nothing more than a technical, skilled martial arts encounter. Rarely is blood-lust properly satisfied. Until now.

Already the anticipation for the rematch has been ratcheted up. If nothing sells like excess, no excess sells quite like the potential for excessive violence. Don’t believe for a moment those in charge of this sport were alarmed by what they saw in Las Vegas. For them, it was the culmination of their work.