On Sunday afternoon Australian time, Conor McGregor is back.
Again.
After five years out of the Octagon post-breaking his leg against Dustin Poirier – and after various life events that included the taking of “banned drugs” to recover, a finding against him in a sexual assault lawsuit, a couple of political campaigns, a White House visit – he’s back to doing what made him famous: fighting in the UFC.
But this one feels like the last comeback.
At 37 and with just two fights left on his UFC contract, and a record of 1-3 in his last seven years with the UFC, the man that has loomed over the UFC for the better part of a decade like Max Cady looming over the Bowdens is surely on his way out once his contract is up.
And as with any fighter, the end is probably going to be horrific. Unlike any fighter, however, Conor’s start was spectacular.
And for the end, the UFC is trying to recreate the magic of the start.
McGregor’s last two fights came against Dustin Poirier, whom he beat on his way up in devastating fashion. It was one of the first fights where Conor’s mental mastery really shone through, almost as a test balloon for the Aldo fight.
Obviously, Conor lost both of his last two fights against Poirier by vicious knockout then by leg break, but it’s worth noting he was largely getting pieced up throughout the fights prior to their finishes.
Now the UFC is doing it again, booking a rematch against Max Holloway at 170 pounds for what is likely his penultimate fight with the company. It will probably end the way the Poirier fights ended, with McGregor beaten by a more active and better fighter at this point in their careers.
While it seems obvious to lean into the mythology of the greatest star in UFC history, and to give him a chance to continue writing his own mythology against old foils, this is not what the UFC does with its stars on the way out. Typically, it feeds them to the wolves like it did with Anderson Silva against Israel Adesanya, or Nate Diaz originally booked to fight Khamzat Chimaev.
The idea is to give the young guy on his way up the gravitas of a great name on his resume, and if the old guy wins it franks their legacy like with Poirier knocking out Benoit St. Denis.
That hasn’t happened with McGregor yet, and it speaks to the grip that he still has over the UFC. He still drives their decision making in a way that nobody has before or since, like Javier Bardem’s Cady forcing the Bowdens to get new security cameras.
After McGregor and Ronda Rousey, the UFC has moved away from centring its stars and moved toward centring its brand. You saw it best at the UFC’s Freedom 250 event where Dana White was the one doing interviews with media publications rather than Alex Pereira or Justin Gaethje.
The brand, on that grand stage, was the star and the fighters were the staff.
But it is an inexorable fact that fighting still runs on star-power. We saw it with the MVP MMA fight headlined by Ronda Rousey, which grew every time Ronda motherfucked Hunter Campbell, showing she was fully back to her best.
Now we’re seeing it with how the UFC is accommodating McGregor. Even the UFC isn’t immune from bending toward its stars, irrespective of how scandal and loss prone they are.
How many race riots does a guy have to start then stoke before you feed him to Carlos Prates?
It reminds me of James Hird being in contention for the Essendon job despite having absolutely no right to it based on his resume. The decision wouldn’t be made for competitive reasons, it would be made for accommodative ones.
It is made just so they can say they’ve done it and then, when he’s gone and after it fails, they can move on.
That accommodation is how we get to Holloway at 170 pounds, a weight that Holloway has never fought at.
Despite that, I expect Holloway to win easily. McGregor was incredibly front foot heavy and slow against Poirier before he shattered his leg so badly that without steroids he wouldn’t have been able to walk the same.
That was five years ago.
Since then McGregor has shattered said leg and also broken his toe so badly that he had to pull out of a booked fight against Michael Chandler, though one wonders if the broken toe had as much to do with the cancellation as what looked to be a Tony Montana at the end of Scarface impression through camp.
Holloway has been active against elite competition over that time period and is still one of the sharpest boxers in the UFC. Even if he can’t get used to the new weight, or his cardio suffers slightly, it will still be better than Conor’s if he can get past round 2.
Conor’s path to victory doesn’t go much further than early magic.
In a certain way, the strangeness of his ending with the UFC speaks to the unicorn nature of his rise. And the way it’s going and likely to go is a mirror image, with those wins that catapulted him to greatness turning into losses that drive him into dejection.
Once it’s finally over, probably after this and one more fight, and he releases his grip on the company fully, the UFC will be glad to be done with him.
For better or worse, there will never be another Conor McGregor in the UFC.