Conor McGregor to fight Max Holloway as Irishman ends five-year absence from UFC

Conor McGregor ’s return to the UFC is finally official, as the former champion prepares to fight Max Holloway at UFC 329. On 11 July, McGregor will face Holloway in the main event at Las Vegas’s T-Mobile Arena , three days before turning 38 – and 13 years after he first fought the Hawaiian. The contest is McGregor’s first in five years, and it comes two years after a planned comeback against Michael Chandler was thwarted when he broke his toe on two weeks’ notice .

That injury was not as severe as the one that occurred in his last bout, though; McGregor broke his leg in a 2021 defeat by Dustin Poirier and has not fought since. Conor McGregor, moments before suffering a broken leg in 2021 (Getty Images) But that will change on 11 July, as the Irishman (22-6) takes on Holloway (27-9) at welterweight. A lightweight co-main event will pit Liverpool’s Paddy “The Baddy” Pimblett against France’s Benoit Saint-Denis .

Hawaiian Holloway, 34, is a former featherweight champion, who also held the “Baddest Motherf*****” title until he was dominated by Charles Oliveira in March . Despite the nature of that loss at lightweight, Holloway is seen as a UFC great, and he holds wins over numerous stars and champions – including Oliveira earlier in their careers, Dustin Poirier, Justin Gaethje, Anthony Pettis, Frankie Edgar and Jose Aldo, the latter of whom he knocked out twice. However, Holloway was outpointed by McGregor back in 2013, early in both of their UFC tenures.

McGregor himself is a former dual-weight UFC champion, the first in the promotion’s history. During his prime, he knocked out Aldo in 13 seconds, stopped Eddie Alvarez in the UFC’s Madison Square Garden debut, and traded wins with Nate Diaz. He then took a break from mixed martial arts ( MMA ) and fought boxer Floyd Mayweather in the American’s discipline, losing via stoppage in 2017.