5 times the action threatened to continue after a UFC fight ended

#2: Joe Riggs vs. Nick Diaz – UFC 57

Nick Diaz infamously continued his fight with Joe Riggs in the hospital after their clash

While the clash between Joe Riggs and Nick Diaz didn’t continue in the octagon after the final buzzer, it’s safe to say that the continuation of their fight elsewhere remains etched in UFC legend years on.

That’s because incredibly, the two welterweight contenders decided to square off in the hospital hours after their initial clash, clearly deciding that nothing had truly been settled in their fight at UFC 57.

The two men had plenty of bad blood going into the bout, not only because of Diaz’s generally abrasive nature but also because of Riggs’ own cocky, trash-talking persona.

When they squared off in the octagon, it was an incredibly close fight to call, with both men getting their fair share of good shots in. In the end, though, despite being rocked in the first round, Riggs was awarded a tight decision by the judges.

The two men did hug post-fight, but the result clearly didn’t sit well with Diaz. And the Stockton native wasn’t about to let up when he saw ‘Diesel’ in a local hospital later that night.

According to Diaz, Riggs instigated the clash, but ‘Diesel’ told a different story.

In a 2013 interview, Riggs claimed he taunted an angry Diaz about suffering back-to-back losses, and when he turned away, Diaz dropped him with a punch to the jaw that knocked half of a tooth out. From there, a wild brawl broke out that lasted for almost five minutes before they were separated.

No footage of the incident exists, but it remains one of the UFC’s most talked-about incidents. The promotion even dedicated an episode of Fight Lore to it in 2020.

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#1: Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Conor McGregor – UFC 229

The brawl that erupted after Khabib Nurmagomedov's win over Conor McGregor stunned the MMA world

Naturally, the most infamous instance of a fight continuing in the octagon after the final buzzer remains the unsavory incident that took place after Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Conor McGregor at UFC 229.

The fight was not only the main event of the biggest-selling pay-per-view in UFC history, but it may also have been the promotion’s greatest ever grudge match, too.

What initially began as a regular rivalry immediately became something else entirely when McGregor responded to some verbal threats from Nurmagomedov by showing up at UFC 223’s media day.

Rather than confront ‘The Eagle’, the Irishman launched a wild attack on a bus carrying the Russian and other UFC fighters. He threw a metal dolly at it and smashed one of its windows.

McGregor was arrested for the incident and charged with numerous crimes. But that wasn’t enough to stop the UFC using it to promote the eventual fight between him and Nurmagomedov at UFC 229.

Evidently, despite putting a complete beatdown on ‘The Notorious’, Khabib remained infuriated by what’d happened. After the fight had ended with him defeating the Irishman with a neck crank in the fourth round, he decided to leap over the octagon fence and attack McGregor’s training partner Dillon Danis.

Before long, all hell broke loose, with UFC officials and security attempting to separate Nurmagomedov and Danis. Incredibly, McGregor began to brawl with Abubakar Nurmagomedov, Zubaira Tukhugov and Esed Emiragaev inside the octagon.

Things got so out of control that once the dust had settled and the brawl had finally been stopped, UFC president Dana White was unwilling to present Nurmagomedov with his UFC lightweight title. There were no post-fight interviews conducted with either fighter.

In the end, both Nurmagomedov and McGregor were suspended and slapped with hefty fines by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Based on the two men continuing to snipe at one another on social media, nothing was truly settled in the octagon at all.