One of the men who was pivotal in defusing the chaotic post-fight brawl at UFC 229 was two-division champion Daniel Cormier, who trains with Khabib Nurmagomedov at American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, California.
Cormier and teammate Luke Rockhold managed to calm Nurmagomedov down after ‘The Eagle’ leapt from the cage and attacked Conor McGregor’s Brazilian Jiu Jitsu coach, Dillon Danis, in the immediate aftermath of the UFC 229 main event.
Speaking to ESPN’s Ariel Helwani in a recent interview (h/t Christopher Taylor of BJPenn.com), ‘DC’ picked up on something that everyone else missed at UFC 229: A heroic fan ran into the cage to check on ‘The Notorious’.
“There’s a guy behind me. He’s wearing this nice jacket… So he’s standing behind me, and he goes, ‘Who do you got in the fight?’ This guy’s completely not into the game, right? So I go, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna go Khabib,’” Cormier said. “So after the fight, when we all jumped the rail, I’m like in the octagon pushing, and the guy’s like checking on Conor McGregor. He was like a fan. He was just like a fan that jumped the rail when everyone else jumped the rail and got all the way to the octagon – he was like checking on Conor. I (later) asked my wife, ‘Salina, what happened with that guy? Was he with McGregor?’ She goes, ‘Daniel, after he went and checked to make sure Conor was OK, he just got back in his seat.’ I swear to God. He just climbed the rail and got back in his seat. I was like, ‘What in the world just happened!? What in the world just happened!?’ It was crazy. How did this dude end up in the octagon, and then he checked to make sure Conor was OK, and then he went back and sat down.”
This heroic deed was carried out by a man named David Martin, who confirmed Cormier’s story and posted the video on Twitter.
Now that’s a story to tell the grandkids. Well done, David Martin.