Conor McGregor’s comeback ended in devastating fashion with the former two-division champion blowing out his knee with the first kick he threw in his fight against Max Holloway at UFC 329.
It was the worst case scenario for McGregor after spending five years on the shelf while recovering from a broken leg suffered his previous outing against Dustin Poirier in 2021. Despite all the speculation about pre-existing injuries, retired UFC welterweight Matt Brown doesn’t buy that McGregor was already comprised heading into the fight but rather he just made an ill-fated move with that spinning roundhouse kick and it came back to bite him.
“The reason that happened, I think Conor was nervous,” Brown explained on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “I thought Max said it perfect — I think he was weak in the knees. He was nervous. I don’t think he looked 100% himself. A lot of people have talked about that. I’m not one judge to body language too much because I’ve made the mistake where you judge body language and then they perform great. I don’t think that’s necessarily the best way to look at it but he’s always been a man of very, very high confidence and he lived up to that, to what he always said he was going to do, for so long.
“A lot of that confidence has been taken away from him. So you’re saying all the right things, pumping himself up, feeling great walking into the fight but somewhere deep inside, he knew there’s not evidence to back up all these things that he’s saying. I could beat everybody, I’m this, I’m that, but you haven’t won a fight in five years, you’ve on the yacht drinking and your last fight you [broke your leg] and you were losing anyway. All of these things are contradictory to what he’s telling himself. That increases the nervousness and he might have even been feeling good but I think deep inside, he was actually nervous.”
On the surface, McGregor looked just like he did in so many fights in the past. He carried that same swagger into the cage that he did while conquering two division and becoming the biggest draw in UFC history.
But deep down inside, Brown believes that McGregor knew he had so much riding on this comeback that he couldn’t slip up and make any mistake. Sadly, McGregor only threw one kick before his dream return transformed into an utter nightmare.
“He didn’t show it a ton,” Brown said. “He’s Conor McGregor, one of the best showmen in history, he’s not going to go in looking f*cking nervous. That would be stupid of him, too. But deep inside, the motherf*cker was nervous and I’ll say it again, Max said it — he was weak in the knees. I think that was exactly the case.
“He had the plan to come out with that kick and went for it and with all this said, all respect to Conor. He does shoot for the stars. He goes for the biggest bag he could get. He chose Max Holloway. That’s a f*cking commendable thing to do. It didn’t work out.”
Brown argues that McGregor really needed a warmup fight in his return rather than facing someone like Holloway, who is still ranked as a top-five lightweight in the world currently. Of course, he also knows the UFC isn’t in the business of making matchups like that so McGregor probably had no real choice but to face whoever the organization threw at him.
“This is exactly why boxers do warmup fights, tune up fights,” Brown said. “This is exactly why you work yourself up the rankings. This is why you don’t go fight Max Holloway after five years.
“Look, Conor’s a mentally strong person. He’ll probably be OK, he’ll be able to come back and fight. It’s not a good idea to come back and fight a guy at a world championship level. You’ve got to get a tune up fight. That’s exactly why they do this stuff.”
For the better part of the past five years, the biggest question surrounding McGregor was whether or not he’s actually ever fight again. Considering the nature of the broken leg suffered back in 2021 combined with his vast fortune, McGregor didn’t need to compete but he remained steadfast that he would eventually return.
The result at UFC 329 might bring those same questions up again but McGregor wasted no time addressing his future when he posted on Monday that he was planning on having surgery, recovering and then getting back to training before returning for “the final fight of the contract” with the UFC.
Judging by that remark, McGregor is anxious to fight out his current UFC deal and then enter free agency where he could potentially earn a massive payday competing in BKFC, boxing or maybe just setting up his own MMA fights against names like Nate Diaz, Jake Paul or Mike Perry.
But if McGregor is resolved to leave the UFC, the promotion could potentially look to bury the Irish superstar rather than giving him a matchup that sends him out on a win.
“Looking back, that’s probably why he didn’t end up fighting Michael Chandler,” Brown said. “That’s a very winnable fight for him. That’s probably one of the better matchups for him. What a situation the UFC’s got to deal with now? Because they kind of need him to lose, I guess right? If he’s not going to re-sign, they’re like well go out on a loss, we’re going to put you in with a lion. But at the same time, they need to make it a proper matchup.
“It’s obvious if they give him Islam [Makhachev], which they wouldn’t, or Carlos Prates. It kind of brings out the obvious — we want you to lose so that you are devalued on your way out. I don’t think that’s a good look for the UFC. Do they care whether it’s a good look? I don’t know. Is that really a good look just putting it out there like that? To be fair, this is the UFC. You’re supposed to be fighting the f*cking lions.”
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