Conor McGregor’s eagerly anticipated comeback to the UFC cage came to a painful and abrupt end Saturday night in Las Vegas, lasting barely more than a minute after the Irish fighter suffered a severe knee injury during his UFC 329 matchup against Max Holloway.
McGregor, a former champion in two weight classes, had been away from competition since suffering a broken leg in a July 2021 bout against Dustin Poirier. In his return Saturday, he attempted a flying kick at the very start of the fight, but landed badly and immediately appeared to be in serious trouble.
He attempted to push through the pain for a brief moment before turning to the referee to indicate he was unable to go on.
Holloway, a former featherweight champion, said after the fight that he’d be willing to face McGregor again once the Irishman has recovered from the injury. “It is what it is, I’m going to sit down with the UFC,” Holloway said. “(There was) so much hype for that right there. We’ve got to run it back one more time. One more time for the boys.”
Saturday’s contest was actually a rematch — the two fighters first met back in 2013, when McGregor walked away with a unanimous decision victory.
McGregor’s career has been repeatedly derailed by both injuries and off-the-mat controversies. Beyond the leg injury against Poirier five years ago, a planned fight against Michael Chandler in June 2024 was called off after McGregor broke a toe during training camp. Later in 2024, an Irish civil court jury found the 37-year-old liable for the rape of Nikita Hand, an incident that allegedly occurred in 2018.
Adding to his troubles, McGregor accepted an 18-month ban in October 2025 for what were described as “whereabouts failures” — he had missed three attempts by Combat Sports Anti-Doping to collect biological samples from him during 2024. That suspension was backdated and officially expired in March.
In the co-main event at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday, British fighter Paddy Pimblett also made quick work of his opponent, submitting Frenchman Benoit Saint-Denis with a choke in less than a minute during their lightweight bout.
