Conor McGregor has been wrong before. The shock of a McGregor loss is twofold: beyond the sporting consequences is the shock that the seemingly all-knowing superstar with the nickname-cum-persona "Mystic Mac" is proven wrong. McGregor’s willingness to put his word on the line and dig in on bold predictions is a double-edged sword and a huge part of the reason that he became a transcendent star in the first place, but McGregor has never been cut by that metaphorical blade as badly as in his loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229.

The difference between this and McGregor’s previous high-profile losses has nothing to do with the stakes that McGregor set for himself with his words. McGregor was equally bold before his previous losses, verbally dismissing Nate Diaz and basically allowing him to forego a weight cut in the lead-up to their first bout, and saying a KO win inside ten seconds would not surprise him before his loss to the otherwise retired boxing star Floyd Mayweather.

But at least McGregor could find excuses, explanations, and positives to hang his hat on after those losses. After losing to Diaz, McGregor followers could swallow the rationalization that McGregor’s cardio conditioning was not equipped for the jump-up in weight from 145 pounds to 170 pounds, and McGregor rewarded those fans by winning the rematch with an impressive five-round performance at the same weight. After losing to Mayweather, McGregor fans rationalized by moving the goalposts back to the more reasonable position that it was impressive just for McGregor to last a few rounds against an all-time great boxer.

There is not much to say for McGregor after the thorough dismantling at the hands of rival Nurmagomedov. Nothing about the victory felt like a fluke – the fight took place at McGregor’s natural weight class and provided four rounds of evidence of how the two match up in the cage. Conor fans can’t even cling to the popular pre-fight truism that Nurmagomedov is the better grappler but McGregor is the superior stand-up striker; in the end McGregor did not stun Khabib on the feet even a single time, and conversely was knocked down by a right hook that Nurmagomedov set up with a brilliant takedown feint.

One of the most mystifying effects of McGregor’s trash talk and self-presentation is that after 10 UFC fights he still feels like something of an unknown quantity. McGregor can still convince fans that the answer to questions about his grappling prowess and cardiovascular endurance is "but what if McGregor has something special up his sleeve," even after those holes in his game have endured for his entire career. As John Malkovich posited in the UFC’s awesomely cinematic official fight promo, at his best McGregor almost feels like he is perhaps "connected to something greater."

In the breathless opening moments of the fight, the anticipation of McGregor doing something great, something unbelievable, was enough to keep viewers on the edge of their seats. It didn’t take long for the fight to hit the ground, and Khabib spent the duration of the round on top of Conor in complete control, though not yet doing much in the way of damaging McGregor with ground and pound. Despite spending much of the round stuck on the bottom, McGregor looked game and confident heading back to his corner when the round broke. Perhaps Conor could mount a second-round comeback, as he did after being taken down at will in the first round of his fight against Chad Mendes.

Instead, the second round was an unmitigated nightmare for McGregor. Early in the round McGregor bit on a lightning-fast takedown feint, leaving himself exposed to a devastating Nurmagomedov overhand right hook that sent the Irishman tumbling onto the canvas. McGregor briefly got his feet back under him only to be hoisted above Nurmagomedov’s head and forcefully returned to the mat with a statement-making takedown. The Dagestani was not content with just maintaining control, as in the first round. Instead he proceeded to spend the duration of the round assaulting McGregor with relentless punches from the top. McGregor looked helpless on his back, and was unable to do much besides resorting to illegal maneuvers such as throwing a knee to his opponent’s head, and trying to cling onto the cage or Nurmagomedov’s gloves. Referee Herb Dean warned McGregor to stop hooking the fence, but made no further efforts to enforce the rule when McGregor ignored his warning and continued to employ illegal tactics for the duration of the fight.

McGregor continued to look for illegal downward elbows and desperate cage grabs as the fight marched towards its now-inevitable conclusion. Though McGregor actually won the third round on all three judges’ scorecards, he did not so much turn the tide of the battle as he did temporarily stop the flood. It was back to business as usual in the fourth round, with Nurmagomedov dragging McGregor to the ground and controlling him in spite of McGregor’s desperate attempts to illegally grab the cage for stability. Eventually Nurmagomedov applied something of a rear naked choke; the grip did not appear to be a fully locked-in blood choke that would have put McGregor to sleep, but instead a painful neck crank. McGregor submitted to the hold, and Khabib continued to stand over the defeated McGregor and bark at him after releasing his clutch.

Herb Dean pulled the defending champion away, and the wrestler continued to berate his freshly vanquished rival. The brash brawler could only look away, and Nurmagomedov triumphantly spiked his mouthpiece into the mat and turned his attention to McGregor’s corner coaches outside the cage. McGregor’s jiu jitsu coach Dillon Dannis returned Nurmagomedov’s jawing and aggressively gestured for the champion to come outside the cage.

To the utter shock of the millions of spectators worldwide, Nurmagomedov scaled the cage and leapt at Dannis with an attack that resembled a flying double-foot stomp from a pro wrestling match, landing a few feet short of Dannis. As Nurmagomedov and Dannis were pulled apart, McGregor ran towards the melee and started to scale the cage himself before being stopped and pulled back into the cage by security officials. McGregor turned his attention to a Nurmagomedov team member who was also running towards the melee and hit him with a left hand. The team member swung back at the Irish superstar before security officials got in the middle of the scuffle.

Suddenly two more Nurmagomedov team members, including UFC fighter Zubaira Tukhugov, jumped into the cage and surrounded McGregor. McGregor only saw one, and traded punches with him before the second attacker sucker-punched McGregor from behind. Security regained control of the situation, and McGregor was escorted out of the arena. Nurmagomedov made his way back into the octagon and demanded that UFC President Dana White present him with his championship belt.

White demurred, cautioning that the champion may imminently be arrested. Nurmagomedov responded that he did not care and wanted his belt. White again balked, contemplating that the audience may begin throwing trash into the octagon if Nurmagomedov was presented with the belt. The stoic champion responded "I am ready for this" in his thick Russian accent, but White decided that everyone else in the vicinity of the octagon might not be. He elected to have Bruce Buffer announce the official result with neither fighter inside the cage.

For Dana White, the melee is a both a gift and a curse in precisely the same way the earlier scuffle between these two fighters in Brooklyn was, when McGregor threw a dolly at the UFC tour bus carrying Nurmagomedov. If White’s reaction to that event can be taken as precedent, then his initial renunciation of the events is not likely to lead to any material consequences for the guilty parties (or at least, for any guilty parties famous enough to headline UFC events). White seems willing to tacitly encourage this sort of lawlessness insofar as it provides him with content to market his fighters as real-life characters in the vein of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin circa 1998 WWF. Even in the immediate wake of the madness, White said that he did not regret making the bus attack incident a central theme of the promotions for UFC 229. It’s easy to imagine he will take the same approach here.

For McGregor, it’s hard to say what comes next. White did his best to paint his golden goose as an innocent victim of Nurmagomedov’s team’s wild antics, but that rings untrue on multiple levels. For one, the dozens of alternative angles of the melee now reveal McGregor’s role in attacking a Nurmagomedov teammate without direct provocation, which was not clear from the original broadcast. Additionally, as Nurmagomedov noted in his post-fight comments, McGregor basically asked for this. McGregor wanted the bad blood to be extracurricular, to transcend the spirit of competition. McGregor has made a career of seeing how far he can push the envelope in belittling his opponents, and against Nurmagomedov he said everything he could to try to make the fight feel personal. McGregor mocked Nurmagomedov’s religion, called his father a coward,, accused him of being beholden to criminal oligarchs, accused his manager of being a terrorist, threw a kick at the weigh-in face-off, and did whatever else he could to provoke the undefeated Dagestani. While few would argue that Nurmagomedov’s team was justified in its attack, it was almost an eventuality that McGregor’s team would run into a crew that would not tolerate their inflammatory antics.

McGregor tweeted that he is looking forward to the rematch. Perhaps fan interest in the personal rivalry could justify a rematch, but there was nothing about the contest itself that would indicate another fight would go any better for McGregor. From a sporting perspective, Nurmagomedov’s next challenger should be the resilient Tony Ferguson, who himself earned a gritty victory over former champion Anthony Pettis in UFC 229’s co-main event. Some wonder whether the post-fight violence could derail Nurmagomedov’s career, but if the successes of past combat sports icons like Jon Jones, Floyd Mayweather, and Mike Tyson are any indication, fight fans and promoters have plenty of appetite for a destructive, unstoppable bad guy.

There are fewer options on the table for McGregor’s next fight than there seemed to be before this devastating defeat. It will be hard to sell fans on a freakshow bout featuring McGregor against a larger opponent such as welterweight champion Tyron Woodley, or middleweight legend Anderson Silva (both of whom were cited by McGregor as potential future opponents prior to UFC 229). Perhaps McGregor could revisit an old rivalry and fight the winner of next month’s anticipated bout between former McGregor foes Nate Diaz and Dustin Poirier.

Whatever he does next, McGregor will have to do it properly. At this point smart, confident fighters like Nurmagomedov can see through McGregor’s mysticism and laugh off his wild proclamations and predictions. If fans find themselves doing the same, the Mystic Mac era may be in trouble and McGregor may run out of things to be wrong about.

*Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified one of the Nurmagomedov teammates who entered the cage and attacked McGregor.