Conor McGregor is on his way to court to face charges stemming from melee

Conor McGregor will appear in a Brooklyn, N.Y., court Friday to face one felony charge and three misdemeanor counts in connection with his role during a UFC media-day melee, the New York Police Department said Friday.

Camera crews and reporters assembled for several hours in the rain Friday morning at the New York Police Department’s Precinct 78 in Brooklyn to watch the handcuffed lightweight champion McGregor exit detention for a car ride to Brooklyn Criminal Court.

Wearing a tight-fitting blue shirt after spending the night in the precinct, McGregor walked to his awaiting car wearing a defiant look on his face, nodding affirmatively before ducking to his seat as two male fans roared two of his best-known statements:

“The champ-champ gets whatever he ... wants,” and “I want to apologize – for absolutely nothing!”

McGregor appeared in video recorded during the fracas on Thursday to be throwing a hand truck that struck the window of a bus carrying fighters, including Saturday night lightweight title fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov, inside Barclays Center.

McGregor is the UFC’s only simultaneous two-division champion, but is expected to officially lose his lightweight belt to the UFC 223 main-event winner between Nurmagomedov and featherweight champion Max Holloway.

McGregor, who had expressed outrage at the UFC for allowing his lightweight belt to be given to the winner of Nurmagomedov’s fight, confronted the Russian on Thursday at Barclays Center.

Ironically, UFC President Dana White had said he’d only strip the belt from McGregor if Nurmagomedov fought someone and a winner emerged.

So as McGregor headed to court to likely plead not guilty to the counts, bound for an uncertain fate, his push to keep the belt remained barely alive thanks to a twisted turn of events.

After interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson injured his knee last week, featherweight champion Max Holloway stepped in. But he fell ill and then another planned replacement, Anthony Pettis, weighed in two-tenths of a pound over the limit.

Asked early Friday afternoon Eastern time if Nurmagomedov was going to fight, a UFC spokesman said, “No word at this moment ... .”

Two UFC fighters who were to appear on Saturday’s undercard, lightweight Michael Chiesa and flyweight Ray Borg, were injured by flying glass inside the bus and have been forced to withdraw from the card.

A UFC executive posted on Twitter that he had suffered a hand injury during the attack.

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

Twitter: @latimespugmire

UPDATES:

10:15 a.m.: This article was updated with additional details after McGregor left the New York Police Department’s Precinct 78 to travel to Brooklyn Criminal Court.

This article was originally published at 4:50 a.m.