UFC 229 ended with a black eye for the sport with a brawl after Khabib Nurmagomedov defeated Conor McGregor. Nurmagomedov (27-0) was able to defend his 155-pound championship by submitting McGregor (21-4) at 3:03 of the fourth round. What happened afterwards is detailed here, and this fiasco starts to make the UFC look more like the WWE. How will Dana White fix this mess?

Will Conor McGregor ever fight Floyd Mayweather? Dana White explains in the interview above that this will only happen if Mayweather goes through him.

Last night’s UFC event was certainly controversial. Johny Hendricks bloodied up Georges St. Pierre in their welterweight division fight and certainly believes that he beat him as you can see from the interview above. Dana White was furious with the decision and is looking to quickly book a rematch.

Lost in the madness of another UFC PPV weekend was Forrest Griffin announcing his retirement from MMA.

Griffin hadn’t fought in over 10 months and was battling injuries. Given that he wasn’t much of a contender in the light heavyweight division, he decided to call it a career.

What was even more lost in all the news was Dana White telling the media after UF 160 that the UFC will be inducting Griffin and Stephan Bonnar into the UFC Hall of Fame together, later this year.

To me, this is a no-brainer. To others, they think either Bonnar, or both, don’t deserve the honor.

Griffin has a strong case in his own right. He was the first winner of The Ultimate Fighter reality series and went on to win the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship. His record, 19-7, isn’t awful and he had a number of memorable fights.

Bonnar is another story. His record was just 15-8 and he lacked a victory against an elite-level opponent during his career. Essentially if you are going to put Bonnar in based on his win-loss record, you would also have to include fighters like Shane Carwin, Frank Trigg and Joe Stevenson.

But, this induction isn’t about overall bodies of work. This induction is about one thing and one thing only, their war in the initial Ultimate Fighter Finale.

That bout was the first time the UFC aired live fighting on Spike TV and its importance cannot be understated.

It wasn’t a technical masterpiece, but it was two men fighting with every ounce of energy they had for 15 minutes. It was everything Dana White and the UFC management wanted to showcase about its sport.

That three-round war, that classic did more for the UFC than any other fight in its history. That fight, along with the enormous audience it drew as it played out, set the stage for the UFC to branch out nationally and has been the foundation for The Ultimate Fighter to continue its operation to this day.

The UFC Hall of Fame wouldn’t be relevant if it weren’t for that fight.

Sometimes a singular moment transcends a sport and those involved are elevated forever in the eyes of the fans and management. This fight is representative of that and Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar should be in the Hall of Fame for this season. You can’t talk about the greatness of the UFC without bringing up that fight.

As I mentioned yesterday, I had the chance to do an interview with UFC President Dana White on Tuesday afternoon to discuss this week’s UFC on FOX 7 event.

You can read the entire interview, which was done for Bullz-Eye.com, here.

Below are a few excerpts from the interview:

One of the things I was really excited about with this deal with FOX was being able to bring big fights back to free television. That has always been my goal since we bought this company. Coming off “The Ultimate Fighter” finale last weekend, every fight was sick, it was an amazing finale. We pulled 1.7 million viewers. We were the highest-rated thing on network and cable television with males 18-34. This fight on FOX is going to be a big one. Ben Henderson is defending his lightweight title again, this time against Gilbert Melendez, who is probably the toughest guy at 155 pounds that has never had a shot in the UFC. Everybody thinks this guy might be the best in the world, so we are going to find out on Saturday.

I have been thrilled with the Strikeforce fighters. A lot of bad stuff happened at Strikeforce. A lot of guys didn’t get paid for a while and these guys are hungry. First of all, they are happy to be back fighting and getting paid to do it. These guys want to prove to the world that they can fight and become the best in the world. The UFC is the place to do that. These guys have been fighting like maniacs, and I love it.