Conor McGregor’s return to the UFC is finally official, as the former champion prepares to fight Max Holloway at UFC 329.
On 11 July, McGregor will face Holloway in the main event at Las Vegas’s T-Mobile Arena, three days before turning 38 – and 13 years after he first fought the Hawaiian.
The contest is McGregor’s first in five years, and it comes two years after a planned comeback against Michael Chandler was thwarted when he broke his toe on two weeks’ notice.
That injury was not as severe as the one that occurred in his last bout, though; McGregor broke his leg in a 2021 defeat by Dustin Poirier and has not fought since.
But that will change on 11 July, as the Irishman (22-6) takes on Holloway (27-9) at welterweight.
Hawaiian Holloway, 34, is a former featherweight champion, who also held the “Baddest Motherf*****” title until he was dominated by Charles Oliveira in March. Despite the nature of that loss at lightweight, Holloway is seen as a UFC great, and he holds wins over numerous stars and champions – including Oliveira earlier in their careers, Dustin Poirier, Justin Gaethje, Anthony Pettis, Frankie Edgar and Jose Aldo, the latter of whom he knocked out twice.
However, Holloway was outpointed by McGregor back in 2013, early in both of their UFC tenures.
McGregor himself is a former dual-weight UFC champion, the first in the promotion’s history. During his prime, he knocked out Aldo in 13 seconds, stopped Eddie Alvarez in the UFC’s Madison Square Garden debut, and traded wins with Nate Diaz.
He then took a break from mixed martial arts (MMA) and fought boxer Floyd Mayweather in the American’s discipline, losing via stoppage in 2017. A UFC return in 2018 brought a submission loss to bitter rival Khabib Nurmagomedov, and McGregor has fought just three times since.
He stopped Donald Cerrone in 40 seconds in 2020, before fighting Poirier twice in 2021 – suffering his first KO loss in MMA in the first of those bouts, and breaking his leg in the second.
McGregor has battled numerous legal issues in recent years, including in 2024, when a civil-court jury found him liable for sexual assault in Dublin in 2018. McGregor continues to deny all allegations against him relating to that case.
McGregor’s return will take place one month after the UFC hosts an unprecedented fight card at the White House. That event will take place on 14 June, the 80th birthday of US president Donald Trump, to celebrate 250 years of the United States.
