The Irish sports star, Conor McGregor, is inviting everyone to raise funds to help his fellow Irish MMA fighter, Ian Coughlan, who suffered a devastating injury during training for an MMA fight in July. A fundraiser on the site GoFundMe has been organized to help the injured Irish fighter.
The Notorious himself has donated €10,000 ($11,339 USD) to the fundraiser on Thursday. McGregor’s head coach, John Kavanagh, is hosting a seminar called Super Seminar ‘Unstoppable’ to help raise further funds on December 18th.
McGregor also called on everyone to show up to the seminar and help to raise funds. The UFC light heavyweight Johnny Walker and UFC bantamweight Brad Katona will also attend the seminar.
“Guys let’s get together and support this young Irish fighter who suffered a terrible injury at a gym in Ireland. Coach John and the team at SBG are hosting a training day and my own recovery permitting, I hope to be in attendance. There will be signed fight wear also!” Wrote McGregor on his Twitter account.
Guys let’s get together and support this young Irish fighter who suffered a terrible injury at a gym in Ireland.
Coach John and the team at SBG are hosting a training day and my own recovery permitting, I hope to be in attendance. There will be signed fight wear also! ☘️ https://t.co/RipsCbKRIv— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) December 2, 2021
The cost of the treatment is €73,000 which is nearly $83,000 USD. So far, 827 people have donated with a total amount of €41,935.
Ian Coughlan is a former Bellator MMA middleweight fighter who fought one time within the promotion in 2019. During a training session, Coughlan landed on his head during a training session and was left completely paralyzed. After being sent to the hospital, the doctor said that Coughlan may never walk again.
Earlier this month Coughlan shared how the incident occurred:
“It was a sparring day. It was last session of the week and getting ready for fight. I was supposed to fight Marcin Zembala in the main event… Yeah a guy just kind of basically threw me on my head essentially. And i kind of went down in the diagonal way against the wall and kinda between the floor and the wall really hard. That was me paralyzed. That’s the essential part of it.”
While Coughlan acknowledges it was a freak accident he still thinks the throw was out of place:
“It was a freak accident but I certainly think the action that caused it to happen was quite reckless, you know. So I don’t know really well. I haven’t really fully got my thoughts around the actual injury itself as to how it happens. I went for a double leg – he defended her by feeding me a single so i ended up having a head outside single. And he kind of got his arm behind the back of my head and shook me down really hard onto the floor like that so I don’t know really what I what I make of it if I’m being 100% honest.”
Currently €43,060 euros has been raised of the €73,000 goal required for stem cell treatment in Germany.