THE ramifications of the violent aftermath of this month’s UFC dust-up between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov continue to rumble on. While both men this week saw their suspensions for the unseemly afters which unfolded at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas extended, Stevie Ray for one told Herald Sport that he doesn’t see what the big deal is. But then Scotland’s most seasoned UFC exponent, a fellow lightweight who takes to the octagon in Canada tonight against Jessin Ayara, was raised on the mean streets of Fife. “Personally, I have seen all that stuff before on a Saturday night in Kirkcaldy,” says Ray. “That is just a normal Saturday night.”

Ray has plenty to fight for this evening against his German opponent in the Avenir Centre in Moncton, New Brunswick. He has lost his last two fights, including a first-round knock-out to Ireland’s Paul Felder in Glasgow last July, and knows that he needs to get back to winning ways quickly to maintain his spot on the roster.

But for now bigger questions loom about the future of this sport. Will the bitter Khabib-McGregor melee – no sooner had the Russian forced his larger-than-life Irish opponent to tap out than he was leaping out of the octagon to land blows on members of McGregor’s entourage – puncture some of the momentum this form of mixed martial arts had been building?

While Ray admits it didn’t look great for the eyes of the watching world, he is probably correct to say it won’t harm the sport’s image unduly in the long term. “UFC has been one of the biggest sports in the world for about 20 years or so, Conor McGregor has been in it for maybe five years,” says Ray. “Obviously he has brought a lot of new people to the sport, brought a bit more attention to it worldwide, and I do feel it is getting bigger.

“What did it show? That while some people think UFC put fake things on to promote the stuff, it just shows that this is real, it is not WWE. There are two guys in there fighting and sometimes it can get personal. People talk and that was personal. I have seen a few bits of footage where Khabib starts talking to him when he is grounding and pounding him, and McGregor says ‘it is just business’, you know the things he said were just to just promote the fight. But Khabib obviously took it personal, because he was saying things about his religion and his family and stuff like that. Obviously it wasn’t good. But I can understand how that can happen in the heat of the moment and punishments have been doled out.

“To be honest, I have seen things like that before, when after a fight is actually finished, there is still that rivalry, that bitterness. I have seen coaches fighting and stuff like that. But in all of my fights I have been respectful – win, lose or draw. Every time I have lost a fight in the cage I have been devastated obviously but I always shake my opponents’ hand, and say he was the best man or whatever.

“You are always going to get a few bad people about sport, you could go to an ice hockey game, or look at some of the biggest football matches in the world and there have been absolute riots, incidents like the one with Zinedine Zidane or Eric Cantona. When something means that much to you, these things sometimes happen. Maybe because we are a fighting sport it sometimes looks a bit worse.

“I don’t think, ultimately, what happened was that bad. There were a few punches thrown after the fight but we should focus on the loads of punches that were thrown during the fight.”

Ray, now 28, and boasting a 21-8 MMA record in all, is going into his ninth UFC bout grateful for the living it has given him, his partner Natalie and three children Lyle, Myla and Millie. He is of no mind to give up a good thing, as witnessed by the fact he has been locked in camp out in Canada for the last five weeks. “Don’t get me wrong, every fight is important, every fight you are going into win,” says Ray. “But because my last fight was a split decision loss, that is me lost my last two now. I could get cut if I lose so there is a lot more in the line.

“My life in UFC has been cool. There aren’t many guys from Kirkcaldy who have done the things I have.”