Conor McGregor may face a race against time to be fit for the final fight on his UFC contract, having sustained a fresh injury on his comeback – if he ever fights again, that is.
On Saturday, McGregor competed for the first time in five years, having broken his leg in his previous bout. And against Max Holloway, the Irish star suffered the same fate: losing in round one due to injury.
McGregor, who turns 38 on Tuesday, appeared to injure his knee while throwing a running, jumping kick in the opening seconds of the UFC 329 main event.
He fell to the canvas, found himself on the wrong end of Holloway’s ground and pound, then managed to stand. However, he soon fell again, absorbed more strikes from the Hawaiian, and stood a second time before stumbling and shaking his head.
With that, the referee waved off the bout at Las Vegas’s T-Mobile Arena, the same building in which McGregor broke his leg against Dustin Poirier in 2021.
Holloway, who was outpointed by McGregor in 2013, was not content with this form of payback, and he quickly called for a trilogy bout.
When could that be, if McGregor ever fights again?
Firstly, the specifics of McGregor’s injury are unclear at the time of writing, although he appeared to hurt his knee, with commentator Joe Rogan suggesting that the issue might be to do with the fighter’s ACL.
An ACL injury can take between six and 12 months to heal, meaning the former champion might not be able to train properly until next July – and not fight until next autumn.
Before UFC 329, he told journalist Ariel Helwani: “Right now I am contracted, and I have both dates. I have both dates for my fights.
“I have 11 July. When would you think they would put me back in? April 2027. It’s almost a year later, that’s ridiculous to me. I think, no?
“This is the way the contract was done, I don’t know. You’d have to ask Audie [Attar, manager] on all of that. I’m like: ‘Huh? Just give me the f***ing contract.’ It gets to that stage.”
However, it is possible that McGregor does not fight again. Between breaking his leg in 2021 and suffering a fresh injury on Saturday, he broke his toe in 2024 to thwart a bout with Michael Chandler on two weeks’ notice.
McGregor’s rematch with Holloway, 34, was not only his first fight since his broken leg and broken toe, but also his first bout since a civil jury found him liable for rape. McGregor appealed the verdict of that 2024 case, but to no avail. He continues to deny all allegations against him.
Also in 2024, McGregor suffered three drug-test whereabouts failures. With the third taking place that September, he received a backdated 18-month ban, making him eligible to compete again from this March. That news was announced last October.
