Conor McGregor defends combat sports after MMA fighter's death

Conor McGregor was ringside on Saturday in Dublin as teammate Charlie Ward defeated Portugal's Joao Carvalho at a Total Extreme Fighting event.

McGregor leads the condolences session.

Two days later, Carvalho was dead at age 28, and McGregor joined the mixed martial arts world in trying to process the fatality while also defending the sport.
Carvalho said he felt strange about 20 minutes after Saturday's TKO loss. He was taken to a Dublin hospital, where doctors determined he needed emergency brain surgery. He remained in critical condition until dying Monday night, Carvalho's team announced.
Vitor Nobrega, on whose team Carvalho fought, called the death a "huge misfortune" and said in the Facebook post that Irish fight officials met all safety standards.


McGregor poured out his thoughts in a Facebook post on Tuesday, anticipating criticism and questions about MMA as he went.
"To see a young man doing what he loves, competing for a chance at a better life, and then to have it taken away is truly heartbreaking," McGregor wrote. "We are just men and women doing something we love in the hope of a better life for ourselves and our families. Nobody involved in combat sports of any kind wants to see this. It is such a rare occurrence that I don't know how to take this."
McGregor referenced British boxer Nick Blackwell being put in a medically induced coma for eight days following a fight last month before praising sports that can often come under fire for the positives they impart to competitors. "Combat sport is a crazy game and with the recent incident in boxing and now this in MMA, it is a sad time to be a fighter and a fight fan," McGregor wrote. "It is easy for those on the outside to criticize our way of living, but for the millions of people around the world who have had their lives, their health, their fitness and their mental strength all changed for the better through combat, this is truly a bitter pill to swallow. We have lost one of us."
McGregor, the UFC featherweight champion, is scheduled to fight next on July 9. His opponent in UFC 200: Nick Diaz, theAmerican who forced McGregor to submit on March 5 at UFC 196.