On Friday, November 22, a woman who accused MMA fighter Conor McGregor of raping her in a Dublin hotel room in December 2018 won a civil claim at Ireland’s high court for damages against him.
McGregor was ordered to pay €248,000 ($257,000, £206,000) to his accuser Nikita Hand. He denied the accusations and has said he will appeal. At the time of writing, the Court of Appeal tells The Athletic that there has been no appeal, which must be lodged within 28 days of the order.
During the two-week trial, the jury heard that after that December day, Hand left her job as a hairdresser and has not been able to work since due to her mental health — claims supported by medical evidence presented to the court by her doctor and psychiatrist.
The jury also heard that she developed post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) after the alleged attack, and that her relationship with her former partner ended months after the incident. She said she had to move out of her home in Drimnagh, Dublin, and her mortgage is now in arrears.
Hand said she’d had to stop seeing a counsellor because she could no longer afford to pay for the sessions, having spent more than €4,000 on doctor, pharmacy and psychiatrist bills.
Among the most emotive parts of the proceedings was when Hand’s senior counsel John Gordon told the jury his client would always be “a marked woman” after standing up to McGregor, one of the world’s most famous and popular athletes, with more than 47million followers on Instagram.
In contrast, McGregor’s life had remained relatively untouched by the events of 2018 — certainly prior to the trial at Ireland’s high court.
It remains to be seen if, or how, the ruling may affect McGregor’s fight career in the UFC, which has seen diminished results since his 2016 peak (one win, three defeats), but where he remains one of the company’s most marketable figures. The prior history of the organization suggests it is unlikely that recent developments would stand in the way of an eventual return to combat for McGregor — and a mightily profitable one.
The 36-year-old has not fought inside the octagon since 2021, when he lost to Dustin Poirier — a fight for which he earned an estimated $33million (£26m) — but has spent the past few years launching his own whiskey and stout brands, becoming part-owner of bare-knuckle boxing promotion BKFC, starting his own record company, and making his acting debut in a remake of Road House alongside Jake Gyllenhaal.
McGregor did the media rounds with Jake Gyllenhaal to promote their film Road House earlier this year (Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)
The sum McGregor must pay Hand pales in comparison to his fight purses, endorsement deals and business enterprises. When McGregor sold a majority stake in his whiskey brand in 2021, $600million was split between him and his co-founders.
Now there’s a verdict, will there be any deeper consequences? And if so, will they linger?
On November 25, game developer 10 Interactive, who added McGregor to Hitman: World of Assassination in the form of a character called The Disruptor earlier in 2024, made an announcement about “its collaboration with the athlete”.
“We take this matter very seriously and cannot ignore its implications,” it said. “Consequently, we will begin removing all content featuring Mr. McGregor from our storefronts starting today.”
In light of the recent court ruling regarding Conor McGregor, IO Interactive has made the decision to cease its collaboration with the athlete, effective immediately. We take this matter very seriously and cannot ignore its implications. Consequently, we will begin removing all…
— HITMAN (@Hitman) November 25, 2024
In a statement to The Athletic, 10 Interactive said: “New players will no longer be able to buy the DLC (downloadable content) featuring Conor McGregor. Meaning that they are still able to buy and play HITMAN World of Assassination, but not the content featuring Conor McGregor specifically. And so far there are not any plans to re-release the mission.”
The National Wax Museum Plus in Dublin no longer showcases a figure of McGregor — removing it initially due to the trial taking place. The likeness had been on display since August 2017. In a statement, the museum said: “As a family-friendly attraction, we regularly review our exhibits to ensure they align with our values and the expectations of our visitors. We will continue to monitor the situation and make decisions about future displays accordingly.”
On November 26, it was reported by Irish online publisher The Currency that the Irish retail giant Musgrave will be delisting drinks associated with McGregor from its retail network. The group controls the SuperValu supermarket chain, Centra convenience stores and Donnybrook Fair brands and is one of the biggest retail groups in Ireland with more than 1,250 shops nationwide.
Other retailers soon followed, including Spar owner BWG Food, the operator of Costcutter, and Tesco, which confirmed in a statement: “We are removing Proper No. 12 from sale in Tesco stores and online. Tesco does not stock Forged Irish Stout.”
There was also an announcement from Proximo Spirits, who bought Proper No. 12 Whiskey from McGregor in 2021, that it will no longer use McGregor’s name or image in association with the drink. Irish airport operator DAA said the whiskey was removed from sale in Dublin and Cork airports while Belfast bar Filthy McNasty’s, which helped to launch McGregor’s Forged stout in December 2023, said it is suspending sales of the drink and is awaiting the removal of a mural on the side of the building depicting the fighter. Pub chain JD Wetherspoon has also pulled products associated with the fighter.
But McGregor is more than his drinks brands. His website lists plant-based recovery brand TIDL Sports and clothing brand August McGregor under the banner of “McGregor brands.” At the time of writing, there was no indication that either partnership was reconsidering its involvement with the MMA fighter.
The Athletic contacted TIDL and August McGregor but received no reply before publication.
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Despite his time away from MMA, McGregor retains a loyal following among the sport’s fans. Since the verdict, he has drawn support, consolation and even admiration from his global audience. In a since-deleted post on X, McGregor said he “made mistakes” in his interactions with Hand, but maintained “everything that happened that night was consensual.” He finished by thanking his family, friends and “supporters all over the world” and stated he was getting back to the gym: “The fight game awaits!”
Though most observers accept he is far removed from being the fighter who simultaneously held the UFC’s featherweight and lightweight titles and knocked out former champ Jose Aldo in 13 seconds in December 2015, a McGregor return could be big box office for the UFC, and its president, Dana White.
McGregor and Dana at a UFC event last year (Cooper Neill/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images)
White is a staunch ally of United States president-elect Donald Trump and gave a speech at the Republican National Convention in July. Referring to Trump, he said: “I’m in the tough guy business and this man is the toughest, most resilient human being I have ever met in my entire life.”
In May 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $5million (£3.9m) in damages. Trump has since been reelected, and celebrated his victory with an appearance at UFC 309 where he received warm applause at Madison Square Garden and a tribute dance from main event winner Jon Jones.
Speaking at the UFC 309 post-fight press conference the weekend before McGregor’s civil case concluded, White indicated that the former champion would be back towards the end of 2025, though “if it’s earlier, that is good for all of us”.
McGregor’s UFC 229 submission defeat to Khabib Nurmagomedov, two months before the Hand incident, remains the most-watched pay-per-view in the company’s history, with 2.4million buys.
The Athletic contacted the UFC for comment on the trial verdict and McGregor’s future in UFC but, at the time of writing, has received no response.
There are multiple examples of disgraced athletes from fight sports returning to action.
In boxing, Mike Tyson was convicted of rape in 1992 and sentenced to six years in prison along with four years’ probation. He was released after serving fewer than three years and came back in 1995, facing Peter McNeeley at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The bout made $96million worldwide, including a then-record $63m in pay-per-view buys with the fight being purchased by 1.52m American homes. More recently, Tyson fought YouTube star Jake Paul.
In the years since Tyson’s rule ended, Floyd Mayweather Jr. has been convicted of domestic violence and battery on multiple occasions, while current WBA lightweight champion Gervonta Davis was arrested in December 2022 on charges of battery/domestic violence. He denied those claims and the woman later recanted her accusation.
In Mayweather’s case, his popularity and earning power increased in the years that followed his 2012 release from prison, where he served two months after pleading guilty to domestic violence against Josie Harris, the mother of three of his children.
Mike Tyson at McGregor’s fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr in 2017 (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
MMA is not boxing, but has its own unsavoury connections.
The rap sheet of heavyweight champion Jones, who defended his title at UFC 309, is long, featuring convictions for drunk-driving, a hit-and-run, three failed drug tests and two incidents of battery. He initially pleaded not guilty to the first battery charge in 2019, but later pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct and received a 90-day deferred sentence.
In 2021, he was arrested after an incident involving his partner Jessie Moses but that domestic battery charge was later dropped. Asked about Jones’ arrest in 2021, White simply said: “This guy’s got a lot of demons, man, a lot of demons.”
When former Dallas Cowboys player Greg Hardy’s NFL career came to an end in 2016, he quickly transitioned into MMA fighting. In 2014, Hardy was found guilty of assaulting a woman at trial, but his conviction was later expunged on appeal when the alleged victim stopped cooperating.
After joining the UFC, in 2019 Hardy was twice booked to fight on the same card as female survivors of domestic abuse.
The impact of McGregor’s court decision was felt keenly in Ireland. Several hundred people marched in Dublin in support of Hand in the days that followed. Their march ended at the office of the Irish director of public prosecutions (DPP) to express concern about why McGregor did not face a criminal prosecution.
In 2020, the DPP told Hand they would not prosecute as there was “no reasonable prospect of conviction” based on the burden of proof required for a criminal case being “beyond reasonable doubt.” In a civil case, the burden is lower, based on the balance of probabilities.
During the weekend that followed Hand winning her civil rape case against McGregor, calls to the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre almost doubled, surging by 150 per cent in the six hours immediately after the verdict was delivered, according to its chief executive, Rachel Morrogh.
“Many callers to the helpline referenced the judge’s comments during the trial around consent”, Morrogh told The Athletic. “They were saying to us that their understanding — which is right — is that consent can be withdrawn at any point and it’s not up to the woman to avoid being raped or experiencing sexual violence. So there was a lot of discussion around shame and blame in Ireland but there was a very good understanding from men and women of where the responsibility lies, which is obviously always with the perpetrator.”
Asked about the lack of response from the sports world, and in particular from the UFC, Morrogh said the absence of voices is regrettable: “It’s not good enough for the sports world to sit on its hands. It should feel the weight of responsibility of having young people — particularly young men — idolise these celebrities and understand how this generation can significantly influence their thoughts and behaviours.”
Morrogh calls for a “zero tolerance” approach to sexual violence in all sports and that swift action be taken by sporting bodies when athletes fall short of that expectation.
McGregor and Nurmagomedov in action at UFC 229 (Stephen McCarthy / Sportsfile via Getty Images)
Compared to the Irish reaction, McGregor’s legal issues have not made such a significant imprint in the United States, where the UFC enjoys its strongest support. Doug Eldridge, the Washington D.C.-based founder of Achilles PR, told The Athletic that the civil verdict against McGregor garnered “little to no” mainstream media attention in the U.S, in stark contrast to the widespread coverage given to his involvement in the New York ‘bus attack’ aimed at Nurmagomedov in 2018.
“To be fair,” Eldridge points out, “at the time, McGregor was the biggest star in the UFC, but he has faded from focus over the last half-decade.”
Given his star status and the fact that his trial was a civil case, thus leaving him with no criminal conviction, the possibility of the verdict having a heavy bearing on McGregor’s future in MMA seems slim.
“If he does plan to return to the UFC, Dana White has a track record of being loyal to his fighters,” says Eldridge. “On its face, McGregor’s verdict in the civil case … would not be a disqualifying factor in terms of a potential return to the UFC. That might not be the case, had this been a criminal conviction.”
When it comes to the impact on ‘brand McGregor’ in the U.S. as a whole, Eldridge says that the distinction between a criminal and civil verdict could play a significant role (though this does not denigrate the allegations made by Hand, or the jury verdict against McGregor): “Although the legal delineation is an important one, the impact of this distinction is not relegated merely to a court of law; it also extends to the proverbial court of public opinion… While the jury has already ruled, the broader ‘court of public opinion’ is still split when it comes to McGregor.”
McGregor has said he will appeal the decision, but whichever way that goes, there appears to be a considerable chance that the impact will be felt far more keenly by Hand than the man nicknamed “Notorious.” For McGregor, the man, the fighter, the brand, the cost of losing in court may leave little more than a scratch.
(Top photo: McGregor in July 2024; by Jorge Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images)
