LAS VEGAS — If his “Mystic Mac” persona could’ve only seen the future with as much clarity as he once did on his rise to winning a pair of UFC championships, Conor McGregor would’ve likely never made the decision to return following a five-year layoff and a catastrophic injury.
But McGregor’s extra sensory perception, like his durability inside the Octagon, simply isn’t what it used to be for the biggest star in MMA history.
McGregor (22-7), who turns 38 on Tuesday, barely got out of the starting gates on Saturday in his long-awaited return headlining UFC 329 at T-Mobile Arena in a welterweight rematch with Max Holloway. The Irish megastar slipped on an ambitious running kick attempt in the opening second of the fight before eventually succumbing to an injured right knee just 69 seconds into his first-round TKO loss.
For an aging legend whose reputation outside of the Octagon over the past decade all but embodied his “Notorious” nickname, McGregor’s attempts at playing the hits on the microphone during fight week, preaching a narrative of religious reform or shaving his head into a last-minute mohawk proved ineffective (and somewhat desperate) at defying Father Time.
This wasn’t a re-aggravation of the broken leg that forced him out of his 2021 trilogy against Dustin Poirier during his last visit to the Octagon. That was the left leg. And the new setback — a suspected blown ACL, per UFC CEO and president Dana White — was probably more bad luck (although it certainly came on an ill-advised strike attempt) than McGregor’s fault, not to mention a bitter pill to swallow.
But for what it’s worth, footage from the Paramount+ broadcast of him entering the Octagon check point before the fight began, showed McGregor favoring his right leg while limping after he slipped off his shoes, which might suggest a pre-existing injury (although White heavily doubted it at the postfight press conference).
McGregor also briefly discussed the topic on social media after the fight.
Either way, McGregor’s fighting future is very much in doubt despite him telling media members this week that he plans on fighting, in some form, forever. And the disappointing ending to a comeback that produced the largest gate in UFC history was, in many ways, a microcosm of the second half of McGregor’s career.
In his first three years and seven months as a UFC fighter, beginning with his 2013 debut, McGregor won nine of 10 fights, set countless pay-per-view records, avenged his lone defeat to Nate Diaz by winning their welterweight rematch in a five-round war and became the first simultaneous two-division champion in UFC history by knocking out Jose Aldo (featherweight) and Eddie Alvarez (lightweight) in his two most impressive performances, just 11 months apart.
But in the 10 years since he took an extended break from the UFC for the birth of his first child and a boxing megafight against Floyd Mayweather in 2017, McGregor is just 1-4 inside the Octagon with four stoppage losses, two career-threatening injuries and a 40-second squash of a badly faded Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone in 2020.
A series of false-start comebacks, featuring plenty of hurrying up and waiting, dominated most of the last five years, including a disappointing withdrawal from a 2024 fight against Michael Chandler during International Fight Week just 16 days out from UFC 303 for a broken toe that led to speculation whether McGregor had been simply waiting for an excuse to call it off.
But McGregor’s longest career layoff from fighting was much more than injuries and recoveries. He flaunted what appeared to be a daily lifestyle of partying on social media for most of it and saw his moral character justifiably fall into disrepair following sustained legal trouble, including him being held civilly liable for rape in a 2025 verdict in Ireland.
McGregor didn’t just change as a person once he achieved generational wealth as both a fighter and Whiskey salesman, he cheated the game and his legacy by punting away his fighting superpower of almost maniacal and obsessive discipline, drive and self-belief. And for a career so frontloaded in historically viral moments and an unimpeachable core of Hall-of-Fame achievements in his prime, the second half of his career has been colossally mishandled.
Each McGregor return to MMA after his one-off boxing match (in the richest fight in the sport’s history) produced a diminished or compromised version of his electric and dynamic former self. And the years of juggling partying with training have broken down his body to the point where “puncher’s chance” is the best-case scenario if an injury doesn’t implode him first.
In a candid moment during Wednesday’s media day scrum, McGregor admitted he fell into the trap of fame and money after 2016 and blamed the responsibilities he once held as the head of his own “Proper No. 12” whiskey company for allowing alcohol to sabotage his personal and professional life.
The problem is that McGregor’s weeklong flaunting of his Bible verse-quoting personal evolution started to feel like a convenient band-aid, if not an intentional distraction, from any talk about his multiple arrests and sexual assault accusations. There was very little acknowledging of his prior transgressions or responsibility taken. And the fruit of his labor as a fighter over the last decade wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy any hope for a reputational car wash by way of an emotional upset victory in front of his wife and four children.
McGregor’s body ultimately betrayed him in the same way his personal missteps threaten to overshadow how truly great of a fighter he once was.
