Conor McGregor finally set to end 5-year layoff, fight Max Holloway at UFC 329
· Yahoo Sports
Conor McGregor is finally back. The embattled former two-division UFC champion is set to fight for the first time in more than five years with a July 11 rematch against Max Holloway at UFC 329.
The bout will be contested at the welterweight limit of 170 pounds. It will serve as the main event of this year's annual UFC International Fight Week festivities.
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UFC announced news of McGregor’s return Saturday just as former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou was making his ring walk on Netflix’s Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano fight card.
McGregor, 37, and Holloway, 34, previously fought at the infancies of their UFC careers, with McGregor earning a unanimous decision over Holloway in 2013.
McGregor (22-6) has not competed since suffering a gruesome broken leg in his July 2021 loss to Dustin Poirier. Despite that extended absence, he remains one of the biggest names in the UFC, if not the biggest. A former champion at both featherweight and lightweight, McGregor has headlined the four highest-selling pay-per-view events in MMA history, and his 2017 crossover boxing match with Floyd Mayweather Jr. remains the second-highest selling pay-per-view event in combat sports history.
Holloway (27-9) is a former UFC featherweight champion and ceremonial BMF titleholder, who lost his latter belt in early March at the hands of Charles Oliveira at UFC 326. The future Hall of Famer won 13 consecutive bouts after his 2013 loss to McGregor, including capturing and twice defending the 145-pound title.
Holloway has since moved up to the lightweight division, picking up big wins over Justin Gaethje and Poirier — the former of which won Uncrowned's 2024 Knockout of the Year — prior to his setback against Oliveira.
McGregor was initially expected to return in June 2024 for a welterweight bout against Michael Chandler at UFC 303, however the Irishman withdrew from the contest two weeks out due to a broken toe.
McGregor's five-year layoff has not prevented his name from remaining in the headlines, though often for the wrong reasons. The UFC star was found liable for a 2018 sexual assault in 2024, and faced another sexual assault civil suit stemming from an alleged 2023 incident in Miami, which was ultimately dropped late last year. In a separate incident in Ibiza in 2023, McGregor was accused of attacking a woman on his yacht. In early 2025, he dropped multiple racial epithets in a social-media tirade against former rival Khabib Nurmagomedov, and this past summer he was caught on video twice punching a man inside an Ibiza club.
McGregor also received an 18-month suspension under the UFC anti-doping policy in October, which was retroactive to Sept. 20, 2024, meaning he was officially eligible to return to competition on March 20.
UFC 329 is expected to take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.