Could the long wait for an announcement regarding Conor McGregor’s next fight finally be over?
The former UFC double-champ has not fought since breaking his leg in the rubber match of his trilogy with Dustin Poirier in July of 2021. Since then, the Irish superstar returned to the limelight with a role in the Roadhouse remake, plus a stint coaching opposite Michael Chandler on The Ultimate Fighter 31 earlier this year.
Once the show went to air, it was widely expected that a fight between the two coaches would be announced — but that has not yet come to pass. Instead, the UFC had a very public falling out with USADA, who had run its anti-doping program (now replaced by Drug Free Sport, and former FBI agent George Piro), in part over concerns that McGregor would be granted an exemption from six months of drug testing.
USADA officials previously confirmed to Cageside Press that the UFC, and UFC only, was able to grant exemptions to the six months of testing requirement for fighters returning to the USADA testing pool after retirement or other absences. McGregor withdrew from the pool following the injury to his leg, though no reason why was ever publicly stated.
Coincidentally or not, with USADA gone as of January 1, 2024, McGregor now says a fight announcement is coming, on New Year’s Day no less.
“I will be announcing my fight date and opponent on New Years Day, 2024,” the ex-featherweight and lightweight champ wrote on social media on Saturday.
Both McGregor and his head coach, SBG Ireland’s John Kavanagh, have in recent weeks and months expressed frustration at the star’s lack of activity. But as he has in recent times, McGregor is also calling his return the “greatest comeback in sports history.”
Now 35, Conor McGregor has not won a fight since his January 2020 TKO of Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone, in a welterweight bout. The bout marked his first since the infamous 2018 debacle with Khabib Nurmagomedov, which saw McGregor submitted, and lightweight champ Khabib nearly spark a riot after attacking McGregor’s corner. In 2021, he competed twice, losing a pair of fights to Poirier, who he had defeated in 2014— though with the second bout concluding early due to injury, the possibility of a fourth meeting remains.
