Conor McGregor wasted no time getting involved. After footage spread of Usman Nurmagomedov confronting Merab Dvalishvili in Abu Dhabi, McGregor posted his signature hashtag, #CONORWASRIGHT, and aimed it squarely at Team Khabib. Sportskeeda reported his reaction on Nov. 13. It’s the same tag he has used for years whenever someone from that camp ends up in an unflattering headline.
The clip itself first surfaced through Ilia Topuria. Championship Rounds flagged it on X on Wednesday, Nov. 11, saying Topuria had posted footage of Usman jumping Dvalishvili. Red Corner MMA followed with what it called the full footage of the scuffle about 50 minutes later. Championship Rounds reshared that longer version and called it insane, in all caps. Neither account offered more detail on what started it.
Topuria then added the most consequential claim of the day. Quoting the Red Corner MMA video, he wrote on X that “Usman has reportedly been detained, along with the cowards who were with him.” Pay attention to the qualifier, reportedly. Topuria didn’t cite a source for the detention, and none of the posts circulating Wednesday confirmed it independently. Treat it as an unverified report from a fighter with an obvious rooting interest.
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Topuria didn’t stop there. He went after the Dagestani camp’s long-running public image, writing, “And these are the same people who dare to preach about humility and respect? What a disgrace.” He closed with a line that reads like it was drafted, deleted and rewritten a few times: “Honor, respect, and humility aren’t words you preach. They’re values you live by. And you’ve shown none of them.”
Sean Strickland also weighed in on X within minutes of the first clip, with a post that leaned on profanity and a crack about religion that I’m not going to reprint. He called Usman a coward in cruder terms and accused the group of waiting to attack people who aren’t looking.
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So here’s where things stand as of the posts from Nov. 11 and 13. There’s video, described by the accounts sharing it as a brawl and a scuffle. There’s Topuria’s unconfirmed detention claim. And there’s a lot of loud commentary from fighters on the other side of this rivalry. What the sources don’t include is any statement from Usman, from Dvalishvili, from Khabib Nurmagomedov’s team or from Abu Dhabi authorities. Until one of those shows up, the facts are thinner than the reaction.
My take: McGregor’s hashtag is the least interesting thing in this story. He has been typing it since 2018 and would have typed it if Usman got a parking ticket. The detention report is the part that actually matters, because if it’s confirmed it moves this out of social media and into a legal and regulatory problem with real consequences. The person I’d most like to hear from is Dvalishvili, who, notably, hadn’t said anything in any of the posts above. Everyone else is just scoring the round from the cheap seats.
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