When it comes to Conor McGregor fighting again, believe it when you see it.
On Sunday, UFC chief executive Dana White announced that the Irishman, once the biggest star of MMA, will return to the Octagon for the first time in five years, facing Max Holloway in a non-title welterweight bout at UFC 329 on July 11 (July 12, Philippine time) in Las Vegas.
That’s the plan, anyway.
With McGregor, Nothing Is Ever Final
McGregor (22-6) has made a habit of announcing comebacks that don’t materialise. The most recent: a scheduled fight against Michael Chandler at UFC 303 in June 2024 that fell apart when McGregor withdrew with a toe injury—leaving Chandler without an opponent and fans without a fight they had been sold for months. Before that, there was a string of absences that stretched a five-year gap in his fighting career into the longest layoff of his professional life.
His last appearance in the Octagon was a TKO loss to Dustin Poirier on July 10, 2021—almost exactly four years before this scheduled return. McGregor suffered a broken leg in the closing seconds of the first round, a gruesome ending that set in motion the long, complicated saga of what comes next. What came next, it turned out, was not fighting.
Off the canvas, McGregor’s absence has been defined by more than just injury. In November 2024, an Irish jury found him liable in a civil sexual assault case stemming from an incident in 2018. He lost an appeal of that verdict in Ireland’s High Court in July. The legal troubles have shadowed every conversation about his return.
Times Have Changed
Now he is 37, coming off a 1-3 run in his last four appearances, with a broken leg, a withdrawn fight, and a civil court loss on his recent résumé. The McGregor who walks into the Octagon in July—if he walks in at all—is a very different proposition from the one who made history.
And yet the fight itself has history.
Holloway (27-9) and McGregor met once before—in August 2013, McGregor’s second UFC appearance. McGregor won a three-round decision in Boston, but it was hardly clean. He suffered a torn ACL during the bout and still had to outwrestle Holloway to get the nod. Holloway has come a long way since. The Hawaiian went on to become a featherweight champion and one of the most decorated fighters in UFC history before making a permanent move to lightweight in 2025. He is 1-1 since the switch, most recently dropping a five-round decision to Charles Oliveira in March.
UFC 329 Could Be Special
Should the planned fight push through, UFC 329 could be stacked. Aside from the main attraction, the co-main event slots Paddy Pimblett against Benoit Saint Denis in a lightweight bout. Pimblett returns to the Octagon for the first time since suffering his first UFC loss to Justin Gaethje in January. Saint Denis enters on a four-fight winning streak after defeating Dan Hooker in Australia, also in January.
UFC 329 has the makings of a marquee night. McGregor as the main event always does. The question—the one that has hung over every McGregor comeback announcement for the better part of four years—is whether July 11 actually arrives with McGregor in the building.
He has given fans reason to wonder.
