Conor McGregor secretly trained at a New York gym just hours after being released from jail following his 2018 arrest.
The UFC legend infamously was arrested for, and later pleaded guilty to, attacking a bus full of UFC fighters including rival Khabib Nurmagomedov.
And one of the first ports of call for the Irishman after spending a night in jail following the incident was to train at The Wat gym in New York City with members of his team who had travelled to America.
This included journalist Andrew McGahon, who at the time was a reporter for McGregor's news outlet The Mac Life, with whom he participated in a jiu-jitsu roll.
As the UFC 223 event which McGregor had thrown into disarray by playing a part in three fight cancellations was taking place at the Barclays Center, he took his team to the downtown gym for a grappling session.
"The night of the fight, Conor had got out of jail and we went and trained in some sort of gym," McGahon explained during a recent episode of the SevereMMA podcast.
"It's might have been Phil Nurse's 'The Wat', a Thai boxing gym, and he had gotten the place opened up and everyone who was there with him went and did jiu-jitsu and trained.
"I got a round with Conor, it was the only time I ever rolled or trained with him and we had just rolled and at the end of the round he popped up and was looking at me."
And McGregor took the time to offer some words of encouragement to McGahon, who has gone on to become a brown belt and compete in a number of top jiu-jitsu tournaments.
He also insisted that he would be back in the cage soon, and that the incident that had landed him in a jail cell for the night would "blow over".
And the incident did pass, with McGregor ultimately avoiding all felony charges in a deal that saw him plead a single violation of disorderly conduct.
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When he did eventually fight Nurmagomedov later in the year at UFC 229, the event sold the most pay-per-views in the sport's history, a record that is still held to this day.
"He goes 'holy s***, I knew you trained, but I didn't know you were any good!'" McGahon continued. "And I was like 'oh, thanks' and we were just chatting away.
"He was asking me how much I was training and if I was doing jiu-jitsu competition.
"He said 'I understand what's happened has put you in a bad situation but don't worry about it, we'll be back, I'll be back fighting eventually and things will blow over and everything will be grand'."
McGregor would ultimately lose to Nurmagomedov in their lightweight fight that October, and due to injuries, the pandemic and other factors has struggled to get a consistent run of fights together since, holding a 1-3 record in his last four bouts.
