Conor McGregor came up lame literally one second into Saturday’s comeback bout with Max Holloway.
To open a fight that the UFC claimed drew the biggest live gate in mixed martial arts history, McGregor rushed out of his corner and threw a flying kick with his left leg. The kick fell short of Holloway’s head by at least a foot, and then McGregor had a landing worthy of the "agony of defeat" guy, dropping to the cage floor in a heap without being touched. Then McGregor immediately got up and went at Holloway again with another left-leg kick that missed badly, and again fell down at the speed of gravity. In his first fight in five years, McGregor had knocked himself down twice in five seconds.
Holloway threw a few punches at his supine opponent, but clearly sensed something was off. He backed away and let McGregor rise. And McGregor quickly fell down again. Everybody watching the bizarre spectacle, including Holloway and referee Mike Beltran, seemed puzzled about how to handle these unforeseen and shocking events.
Beltran and McGregor, from his back, were telling Holloway to keep fighting through the weirdness. So Holloway threw several haymakers while standing over his pathetic foe. But when he let McGregor get off the floor yet again, only to watch another unforced collapse, Holloway successfully begged Beltran to stop the fight. Super slo-mo replays on the TV broadcast of McGregor’s first silly kick appeared to show a slight buckle of his right knee during the landing. Holloway would later say he yelled at the ref, "Bro, this guy is done!" So at the 1:09 mark of the first round, the long-awaited, overhyped return of the mean-spirited Irish blowhard who calls himself "The Notorious" was officially over. At least for now. What a letdown.
McGregor’s last fight, in July 2021 against Dustin Poirier, ended with a similarly catastrophic injury, as McGregor’s left leg snapped while throwing a big overhand left that missed near the end of the first round. In that case, Poirier pounded the crap out of McGregor as he crumpled to the ground. The fight was stopped between rounds. He was later reportedly diagnosed with a broken tibia and fibula, and had a titanium rod inserted in his left leg. A scheduled comeback bout against Michael Chandler was scrapped in 2024, allegedly because McGregor injured a toe in training. And now this.
Were McGregor not so awful, it’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for him. But he’s spent too much of his time out of the cage trying to prove he’s a bad guy, and succeeding wondrously. While he remains a star in the U.S., where he has buddied up to President Trump, McGregor has become largely an embarrassment to his own countrymen for fostering a stupid and mean public persona, highlighted by a history of sexual assault allegations and anti-immigrant tirades.
But he made gobs of money for the UFC. McGregor is credited with headlining four of the top five pay-per-view broadcasts in MMA history, along with three of four biggest live gates ever. So, despite the pathetic history of oldsters jumping back in the ring after long layoffs, he got a comeback offer from Dana White.
There was something off about the UFC’s promotion of McGregor’s return, however. First and foremost, McGregor not only wasn’t on the card for last month’s ridiculous and ridiculously hyped White House card, he wasn’t even on the premises. It almost felt as if the UFC was trying to hide McGregor from the public eye for as long as possible, so as not to broadcast how inevitably disappointing his comeback would become.
But there he was in Vegas on Saturday, making his cagewalk to Sinead O’Connor’s chilling rendition of the revered Irish rebel song, “Foggy Dew,” and prancing around with his “billionaire strut,” just like old times. Only it didn't really feel like old times. McGregor gets more visibly swollen every year, and so it wasn't much of a surprise that he lost, only that he broke down like Barbaro right out of the gate.
McGregor wasn’t the only loser on the night. Other than financially, nobody involved came out better than they went in. In his post-fight press conference, Holloway still seemed embarrassed and perplexed by what he’d been through.
“I had the man weak in the knees,” he said. “What can I say?”
Holloway then snapped back into business mode and made a plea for him and McGregor to “run it back.”
On that front, I think we can all agree: Nah.
