WHY DOES AMERICA KEEP ENABLING THE CONOR MCGREGOR FREAK SHOW?

For the fifth time, the UFC rogue has been accused of sexual assault — inside a men's VIP bathroom of a Miami arena during the NBA Finals, which begs a question: Why was he invited in the first place?

     The eejit who once brought “Red Panty Night” to the MMA crowd — eejit is an idiot, in the slang of Irish doofuses — was dressed in red himself last Friday night in Miami. Looking like an elf who’d just purchased his shiny outfit at Bal Harbour Shops, Conor McGregor was wired on something, either himself or a substance. For some ungodly reason, an NBA franchise that has honed a proud value system, Heat Culture, invited him to the Finals so he could promote his brand of pain relief spray in an on-court skit with the team mascot.

     Once McGregor sent Burnie to the hospital, after an overzealous punch to the face, he should have been hauled out of Kaseya Center. But they let him stay, enamored of him as the world has been for 10 years, since he emerged from Dana White’s goonish stable as the centerpiece of the blood-and-gore enterprise known as the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

     So why would anyone be shocked — after four previous allegations of sexual assault and a history of violence ranging from hurling a metal dolly at a moving bus and punching an elderly man in a bar — that McGregor is accused of raping a woman after the game inside a men’s VIP bathroom? The only question more pressing than why McGregor never has gone to prison, locked away with his own madness, is why the sports world continues to embrace him. Why would esteemed basketball lifer Pat Riley, whose title is team president, allow this degenerate anywhere near his domain?

     Though his long trail of trouble never should give McGregor a benefit of doubt, he is entitled to due process. Did he “violently” rape his accuser after she was “physically forced” into the bathroom by NBA and Heat security cops, as her attorney says? I wasn’t there. But a video has emerged, appearing to show him taking her hand in a crowded area and escorting her into the bathroom area as the cops stood there. While his reputation as a brute is indisputable, we’ve seen accusers embellish or completely fabricate stories, with lies expanding once lawyers and TMZ are involved. McGregor’s attorney says, “After not responding to the demand for money made by the claimant’s counsel, she turned to the media to apply pressure. This is no more than a shakedown.”

     Or, maybe he took advantage of her inebriated state. A woman of sane mind does not party with McGregor in the arena’s notorious club, on a night when she had “no less than six drinks,” then follow a man in a Denver Nuggets jersey who told her, “Conor told me to come get you.” This is according to the accuser’s lawyer, Ariel E. Mitchell, who wrote in a demand letter, “My client was under the belief they were leaving and going to the Four Seasons Hotel, as Conor had previously asked her to join him at his hotel room.” And what did her client think was going to happen in that hotel room?

     Nonetheless, this is the fifth time McGregor has been accused of sexual assault, the first four outside the U.S. In 2018, a woman accused him of raping her in a hotel penthouse in his native Ireland. He was arrested and questioned, but prosecutors didn’t pursue charges, giving him a four-case winning streak. But the Miami Police Department has been investigating the past week, and at some point, law enforcement in our republic is going to stand up to this creep. If he raped her in the bathroom, this is an abhorrent scandal for the Heat and the NBA, a league that can’t stay out of its own legal way.

     With security blocking the bathroom entrance, wrote Mitchell, the accuser claimed to be trapped in the bathroom. “When the victim attempted to urinate, Mr. McGregor, instead of giving her privacy to do so, pulled out his penis and shoved it down the throat of the victim,” the letter states. “The victim pushed Mr. McGregor off of her, and Mr. McGregor then spat on the victim and on his penis in a desperate attempt to get his flaccid penis hard. … As the victim tried to exit the stall, Mr. McGregor aggressively grabbed her, pinned her up against the wall, and then ripped the elastic waistband of her pants while pulling them down. Mr. McGregor then attempted to insert his penis into the victim’s rectum. Fortunately, Mr. McGregor’s penis was too limp for complete penetration, and the victim continuously elbowed Mr. McGregor and finally escaped.”

     A conceivable scene? I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand, knowing who we’re dealing with. As the investigation continues, what the media should be asking — in the strongest language possible — is why so many human beings are more fascinated with McGregor than repulsed by him? Who invites this guy to an NBA Finals game, much less makes him part of the entertainment? He hasn’t fought in the UFC octagon since 2021, when he broke his leg, and is said to be training for a December comeback. He’s no more than a celebrity drunk these days, yet the bro-dudes still love him, including those lingering at the bathroom entrance as he apparently took his accuser inside.

     McGregor’s enabler, of course, is White, the UFC president, smiling all the way. This is a man who began the new year by slapping his wife, as captured in a viral video, and he got away it with nary a corporate reprimand just as McGregor gets away with everything. All of these sleazes — including CEO Ari Emanuel at Endeavor Group Holdings, the Hollywood powerhouse that owns UFC and WWE, and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro, who’s in business bed with White — allow Conor McGregor to be Conor McGregor. They do because Saturday nights are money-making ventures for the promotion and the network. And it’s important for their gutter-slopping businesses to keep trotting out McGregor, the best-known UFC fighter, for public consumption. The combined operations of UFC and WWE, neither considered a sport in the authentic sense, carry an estimated worth of $22 billion.

     So, the culture is made for Conor to do as he pleases. Same goes for White, whose “Power Slap” project mercifully was canceled by TBS after his wife-slap but only fueled his rage to crusade against sports media. He says he’s making a retaliatory documentary, calling out those who questioned why he staged UFC events at the height of the pandemic.  “I’m making a documentary about the media that I can’t wait to put out. Where I’m calling people out by name, the publication they work for … I can’t wait. Trust me this is going to be a passion project for me,” he told Outkick. “I had this (quote) installed in my office and it says, ‘May God have mercy upon my enemies — because I won’t.’ And I have it in there in my office and I look at it every f’n day. And that is the way that I’m wired and that is the way I think all day, every single day.”

     Earlier, he told podcaster Robbie Fox, “It’s just like when we went through COVID, you know and I had to listen to all the bullshit as we went through. … Wait ‘til you see this bad boy. Faces, publications, names, what they said, the whole deal. It’s gonna live forever.”

     That’s the problem. Derelicts such as Dana White and Conor McGregor think they can live forever because their partners in slime, at Endeavor and ESPN, are bootlicking cowards. Some media members have tried to expose it all, but millennials and Gen Zers keep flocking to bars to watch UFC. Is this finally the time when McGregor, at long last, will be caught with his pants down and sent to the slammer? Until then, I ask a favor of the United States of America.

     Can we please deport this freak show?

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.