Out of the blue! Italian DJ still has no idea why Conor McGregor punched him

Conor McGregor has recently relocated from California to Rome where he took in the sights and had his newest child baptized at the Vatican, just another sign that he’s no longer just a sports superstar, but a mover through top circles of society. Other photos and videos from the weekend show him partying it up with Johnny Depp and sharing a glass of Proper 12.

There’s no photos or video (yet) of another big part of that weekend, where he allegedly punched Italian TV personality Francesco Facchinetti in the face, breaking the former DJ and singer’s nose. Just like with his September altercation with Machine Gun Kelly on the MTV VMA red carpet, there’s more questions than answers about the incident, and even the victim Facchinetti insists he still has no idea why he was punched.

In a new interview with MMA website Sherdog, Facchinetti details the whole incident. But first, I know what you’re thinking: who the hell is Francesco Facchinetti? Well, he describes himself in the interview as a former singer who moved into the TV world to host Italian editions of “X-Factor” and “The Voice.” He also noted that he founded and runs the largest artist management company in Italy, covering music, sports and Internet personalities.

“My work is working with that type of people,” he said. “I’m spending all the day to speak with that type of people, singers, actress, actor, Youtuber, Instagramer, TikToker, soccer players, I work with fighters, I’m working with Marvin Vettori. I know these types of people. It’s important that because you can say, ‘Hey he was there and he doesn’t know how to approach with that type of fighter. Maybe you touch him, maybe....’ No no no. I’m a manager. My work is with that type of people. I speak every day, I know everything. This is my world.”

DJ Francesco said he ended up in the meeting room of a hotel late at night after McGregor extended an invitation to his friend Bella Thorne, who was in town to attend a movie premiere with Facchinetti the next day.

“Conor sent a message to Bella and invited us to [a party] in Rome,” he said. “I was happy. You can meet Conor McGregor! Are you going to say no? I was happy.”

“The situation was chilling, chilling,” Facchinetti explained. “Without music because we were inside meeting room. And I spoke with him about Rome, he says this city is f—king amazing. I spoke to him about other cities in Italy. He spoke to my wife about Brazil and he says that he loves Brazil. I think that he said that he had [plans] to do a match in Brazil, but lost to Khabib and canceled the match. We talked about Jose Aldo. We talked about everything. We talked about his documentary on Netflix. He spoke to me about his Lamborghini. We speak about everything. It was an amazing night.”

Things turned sour when Thorne suggested they end the evening.

“Bella says, ‘Hey, we have to go because we have the premiere at 10 a.m.’ and the time was maybe three,” he said. “And [Conor] says, ‘No, please stay here guys, because I want to party, I want to do a party. Stay here.’ Okay, stay here. In that time, we were around him, he was in the center. It was me, my wife, Ben, and Bella. In that time, I don’t know what’s happening inside his brain. I don’t know. It’s like turned like a switch.

“I worked also 20 years as a DJ because I have a club in Milan and I know a lot of time in the night, anything can happen,” Facchinetti continued. “And his brain turned, and he punched me. And I was like inches away and the punch wasn’t heavy. He punched me with a right ... he punched me from low to high and he took me here [mouth and nose] and he broke me here [shows lip] and broke the cartilage here [shows nose] because he was here and the punch wasn’t hard like a McGregor punch.”

“In that moment there was a table near my ass and I [fell back] and in one second his friends take him on the wall. If you are looking the video [of McGregor punching the old man at the pub in 2019], you can see his friends take him out of the situation in one second. He punched the old man and in less than one second, pow. It happened, the same stuff. Because I think they saw that like 100 times, or maybe 1,000 times, that kind of story. And also because his brain was turned off.

“And he tried to fight with me another time,” DJ Francesco added. “He was at the door, I was on the opposite side. He was on the wall with four friends holding him against the wall. And some bodyguard come to me and he tells me — now if you say something bad to Conor McGregor, what’s his bodyguard going to do to you? He tried to help me and take towels and help me. And my wife, she was completely crazy, she screamed a lot. And the bodyguards, they did the work. They went to my wife and they said, ‘Shhh.’ They tried to clean everything.”

Facchinetti refused to say whether or not McGregor seemed under the influence of anything, but implied video footage would lay the scene out better than his words could.

“I think if that video came out, I think it’s the last time he can punch in normal life, or anything inside the Octagon,” he said. “Because I’m waiting on that video. I don’t want to say what happened in that room.”

At first, Facchinetti said he wasn’t going to pursue the matter legally, but his friends convinced him otherwise.

“They said you have to go to police because next time, another guy, that guy die or go to hospital, that would also be your fault,” he said. “Also because that type of violence, we have to fight against all that type of violence.”

Facchinetti says he’s still struggling to understand why the incident happened at all.

“I’m checking every moment because it’s three, four in the morning and it was completely out of the blue. But, my word is nothing. I want to see the video. I want to see that f—king video. I hope [the hotel will release the video]. ... It’s about sport, it’s about him. He must stop that type of modus operandi.”

But, in the end, DJ Francesco says he’d just rather the whole thing never happened.

“I want to erase everything,” he declared. “I want to take the car from ‘Back to the Future’ and say no to going Saturday, because I know this is s—t on the MMA world.”